Everyday Strawberry Cake

Flavored with cinnamon

Mar 11, 2025

∙ Paid

I don't know what's been going on these last couple of weeks but Holland is starting to feel a lot like Greece as far as the weather is concerned. The temperature is sky high and the sun is beaming relentlessly on everyone's face, creating freckles on noses, turning cheeks bright red and making Dutch women extremely happy because elke dag is Rokjesdag (every day is Skirt Day).

Rokjesdag (Skirt Day) is the first day of the year in Holland when the temperature is high enough for women to wear mini skirts and sandals and bare their legs to the world and, to be truthful here, I don't get what the big deal is. The weather is good, you wear your mini skirt. The weather is bad, you don't.

I mean, in Greece we just wear our skirts and go about our days and don't have to dance in the streets to celebrate it. You need to understand that, in Athens, when temperatures are higher than normal for the season, we're just worried that a heat wave will hit us and that we're going to have to cling to our air conditioners to avoid a heat stroke.

Instinctively, this uncanny heat doesn't make me wanna wear skirts and flip flops but go to Media Markt and buy another fan.
What this heat also does to me, is turn me into a maniacal consumer of anything fresh and fruity. It makes me want to enjoy all that early spring has to offer—peas, spinach, artichokes, strawberries, asparagus— cooked in every imaginable way.

It is a special moment for me when I spot the first strawberries of the season at the market. It's almost like when you're at a party and you make eye contact with a guy you really like and then he comes over to talk to you. Well, it's like that with me and strawberries. I want to ask them what they're doing later.
So, last week, I got a kilo of the most beautiful strawberries I have ever seen. Big, juicy, redder-than-red strawberries that were not too sweet but were ideal for my favorite everyday cake; strawberry cake with cinnamon.

I have been making this cake for years and it's always been a big hit with anyone who has ever tasted it. They all ask me for the recipe and now is the time for me to share it. This is the type of cake that is easy to make, that doesn't require any crazy ingredients and has a taste that is absolutely amazing.
It is full of succulent strawberry chunks that ooze out of the cake when you take a bite. It has a deep cinnamon-y flavor without being too sweet and it's so aromatic, so moist, so delicate that I feel I have to warn you; it is hard to restrain yourself and not eat a couple of slices back to back. Then again, I guess that's not such a bad thing.