Ingredients
Crust
- 1 ¾ cup Flour
- 2/3 cup powdered sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 Cup butter cold, cubed
Filling
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 2 Tablespoon sugar
- 2 cups fresh strawberries diced
- 6 Tablespoon strawberry preserves
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Streusel Topping
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup oats rolls or quick
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup butter cold, cubed
Method
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9×13 pan and set aside.
CRUST
Mix together flour, powdered sugar, and salt. Add cold, cubed butter. Using a fork or a pastry blender, cut butter into the dry ingredients until it starts to get crumbly. You can continue with the fork or pastry blender, but I find it easiest to mix the rest of the way with clean hands.
Evenly drop clumps of dough into the pan and then use your fingers to press down into the pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the edges start to get golden. Meanwhile, prepare the filling and streusel topping.
FILLING
- Mix together the cornstarch and sugar, set aside.
- Dice the strawberries into small pieces. Mix together with the sugar mixture, strawberry preserves, and lemon zest.
- Spread evenly across the par-baked crust.
STREUSEL
- Combine flour, brown sugar, oats, and salt.
- Add butter and cut in with a fork or pastry. Mix until the butter is about pea sized and clumpy.
- Spread evenly across the top of the strawberry filling.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the streusel topping begins to brown.
- Allow to cool.
Final Method
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter a 30 x 20cm tin and line with baking parchment. Put the cake ingredients in a bowl except for the white rum. Whisk until smooth using an electric whisk, then transfer to the tin, smooth out and bake for 30-35mins until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool completely.
Meanwhile, for the filling, whisk the butter, icing sugar and milk together until smooth, then transfer to a piping bag.
When the cake is cold, slice off the top so it’s flat, turn over, trim and cut into neat, approx. 4cm squares (four squares across and seven down). You should have 28. Dip each one briefly in the rum and sit dipped-side up. Put a tiny dot of strawberry jam on top of each cake, then pipe a raspberry-sized ball of the buttercream filling on top of each one.
For the icing, mix the fondant icing sugar, pink colouring and enough water to make it a condensed milk consistency. Put the cakes on wire racks set over trays to catch the drips, then coat each one in the icing. The best way to do this is to hold each one over the bowl of icing on a slotted spoon then generously drizzle over the icing with a tablespoon. Remove from the slotted spoon with a cutlery knife and sit on the rack to dry. Decorate with a sprinkling of freeze-dried strawberries and white icing. Serve in cake cases, if you like. Will keep for two days in an airtight container.
