Strawberry Spice Cakes

This is my variation on strawberry shortcakes, bursting with flavor. Instead of plain biscuit-type "cakes," I make mine as spiced muffins. Freshly picked ripe strawberries are naturally sweet, and are wonderfully accented with these ingredients. You can also make this recipe for spiced cakes as a sweet bread, and use slices for the final presentation:

INGREDIENTS
If an ingredient is in red type, look for details on my "Ingredients" page, linking from the top of any page in this blog.
 
For the Cakes (makes about 18 muffins or 6 muffins and 3 mini loaves):

2 eggs, beaten
1 c honey
1/2 c sorghum syrup or molasses
1/2 c coconut oil, warmed to liquid
1 can pumpkin puree (about 1-1/4 c)
2 c all purpose gluten free flour *
1/2 c sorghum flour
1 T chai spices or pumpkin pie spices
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c chopped fresh strawberries
(* If not concerned with making this dessert gluten-free, use 2-1/2c white wheat flour in place of the two gluten-free flours in my recipe.)

Cream:
Whipped Coconut Cream (see the recipe here)

Topping:
3 c sliced fresh strawberries
1 t ground cinnamon
2 t lemon juice
sweetener to taste

DIRECTIONS (for 4):
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease large muffin tins or mini bread pans. Mix eggs, honey, sorghum, coconut oil and pumpkin puree well. Separately mix the flours, spices, baking soda and salt. Stir the chopped strawberries into the dry mix to coat them. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until well mixed. Spoon into the muffin cups, filling them just half way. Bake for 30 minutes for muffins or 50 minutes for mini bread loaves. Remove to a rack and cool.

Mix the sliced strawberries with the cinnamon and lemon juice. If they need sweetening, I use my own homemade vanilla/stevia extract. Alternately, sweeten with a little local honey. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve, and the berries will release juices.

Mix the coconut cream topping, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Just as delicious on slices of spiced bread

To serve, split 4 muffins in half (top and bottom) and place them open in an individual serving bowl. I switch the order of the toppings from a conventional strawberry shortcake: top muffin halves with a big dollop of cream, then spoon the strawberries on top, with all their sweet juices, flavoring the cream and the cake. This tastes just as scrumptious on a slice of the spiced bread - for breakfast, dessert or anytime snack.


P.S. Thanks to my special friend Sandra for my lovely personalized dish cloth; she is an extraordinary quilter and master of machine embroidery, as you can see.