It wasn’t hot enough for cake that day.
Cloudy, like the sky couldn’t commit. The kind of weather that doesn’t tell you what to wear, so you end up with cold wrists and damp ankles. The strawberries were on sale—too red, too early, probably from somewhere too far away. I bought them anyway. Mae had texted me “Mum do you remember that cake we had in Vermont?” and I didn’t. But I lied. I said yes. And I pulled out Her Highness’s Strawberry Layer Cake like it was going to save me from whatever I’d forgotten.
I used the green Pyrex bowl I’ve had since college. Still has the weird scratch in it from that time I tried to mash potatoes with a spoon handle. Anyway.
What the Original Looked Like
Martha’s version is layered perfection. Four even rounds. Syrup-brushed. Whipped cream piped like she’s got a team of pastry angels behind her. There’s rhubarb jam in it—store-bought or homemade, but we both know which one she means. And the strawberries are sliced precisely—1/3 inch thick. Because 1/4 would be sloppy. And 1/2 would be a scandal.
She chills the whole thing for two hours.
Two.
As if I wouldn’t be sneaking a fork into the side the second Mae wandered out of the room.
What I Did Differently
I didn’t have low-fat buttermilk, so I splashed some lemon juice into whole milk and crossed my fingers. Used strawberry jam, not rhubarb, because I didn’t want to open that memory drawer. Also… I didn’t slice the berries that neat. They looked better wild. Like they had something to say.
I also didn’t refrigerate it the full hour. I made it in the afternoon and we were eating it by five. The cream sagged a little. So did I.
The Way It Happened In My Kitchen
Butter was too cold. Again.
I shoved it into the microwave and forgot it for fifteen seconds too long, so part of it melted and pooled like a sigh at the bottom of the bowl. The sugar didn’t care. It grabbed the butter anyway and started spinning into something almost beautiful.
Flour clouded up when I dumped it too fast. Looked like smoke. Made me think of the lemon cake Mae tried to make when she was nine—the one that caved in the middle and we still ate it with spoons off the rack. This batter was thicker. More sure of itself. I wasn’t.
I forgot to rotate the pans halfway through. One came out slightly taller than the other. I called it character.
Mae said it looked like a hatbox that had been dropped.
When I sliced the layers, I thought about my grandmother’s pie crust. How dry it always was. How she never smiled when we told her we liked it. This cake would’ve made her nervous. Too soft. Too joyful.
The whipped cream came together like it wanted to help. I didn’t sweeten it much. Just enough to remind you it was there.
Layering was a mess. The jam bled into the cream. The berries kept sliding toward the edge like they were trying to escape. I let them.
A Few Things I Learned
The syrup from the strawberries made the whole thing taste like a melted memory.
Don’t skip it. Don’t skip things just because they seem small.
Also—
this cake needs a quiet house. Not a party. Not a birthday. Just a fork. And maybe someone you half-trust.
What I Did With the Extras
There weren’t any. Mae took a slice to her room. I ate mine by the sink, barefoot, pretending it was summer.
It wasn’t.
Would I Make It Again?
Yeah.
But not for a crowd. Just for a day I can’t name.
That’s As Much As I Remember
The sky cleared later. Briefly.
The kind of clear that makes you miss someone you shouldn’t.
Maybe it was the strawberries. Maybe it was me.
If you need something warmer, I did a version of Martha’s cinnamon bread pudding once that smelled like regret and brown sugar. Different mood. Still good.
FAQs
yeah, but let them thaw and drain or your cake’s gonna slide around like it’s on roller skates. fresh feels better, but i get it—some days you just want to bake and not think about seasons.
Yes. emotionally, no. mine barely made it an hour. if your whipped cream starts slumping, just call it rustic and serve it anyway.
Not sickly. the jam adds enough, but the cream keeps it calm. it’s like… balanced chaos. like mae’s handwriting.
I wouldn’t. it’s the glue. but if you’ve got macerated berries and a soft heart, just use more of those. cake might get soft faster. still good.
Check out More Recipes:
- Martha Stewart Yule Log Cake
- Martha Stewart 5 Ingredient Cookie
- Martha Stewart 4th Of July Cake
- Martha Stewart 7 Minute Frosting
Martha Stewart Strawberry Layer Cake
Description
Creamy, soft, and a little messy. I liked it more that way.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Prepare the dry stuff: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt—tossed it all into the biggest bowl i could find. stirred with a fork because the whisk was in the sink. not sorry.
- Cream the butter and sugar: butter was too cold, so i cheated. microwave, fifteen seconds too long. it half-melted. still worked. beat it with sugar until pale and fluffy-ish. looked like soft snow.
- Add the eggs and mix it all in: one egg at a time. cracked straight in, didn’t bother with a separate bowl. flour mixture went in, alternating with fake buttermilk (milk + lemon, no shame). ended with flour. vanilla at the end like punctuation.
- Bake the cakes: split the batter between two buttered, floured, parchment-lined pans. smoothed the tops. baked at 350°F. 40 minutes. one browned faster than the other. figures.
- Macerate the strawberries: sliced them thick. not measuring. tossed with sugar, lemon juice, a bit of salt. let them sit until syrup pooled at the bottom like memory.
- Whip the cream: cold cream. powdered sugar. beat until it held a peak that looked like it had feelings. didn’t go too stiff. didn’t want it to shout.
- Build the layers: sliced the cakes in half—nervously. brushed the bottom layer with syrup like it was a love letter. jam went on next. then berries. then cream. did that dance three times. last layer went on upside down. looked better that way.
- Chill and finish: stuck the whole thing in the fridge. barely waited. dusted with sugar. served with spoons, not forks. nobody complained.