three best bites: berries and pies (but no berry pie)

Strawberries are the centerpiece of this week’s best bites, and I’m not even including the ice cream I made Saturday with berries I’d picked that morning in southern Maryland. That’s because it warrants its own post, coming later this week. I hope you, too, can race out to a strawberry patch before this year’s berries are decimated.

old-fashioned strawberry cake: Alison Roman’s new book and I got off to a rocky start, which I’m now blaming partially on user error and partially on my oven. So far, I’ve tried two recipes: the strawberry cake I’m about to gush about and the salted lemon pie. On my first (and only) pass at the pie, the center refused to set, and I’m still not sure why. On my first pass at the strawberry cake, I eyed my cake pans all wrong, grabbed an 8-incher instead of a 9 and wound up with an underbaked mess.

Last weekend, I worked up the courage for a do-over after I saw a photo of farmer’s market strawberries on Instagram. And what eventually emerged from my oven was perfect: browned and juicy and somehow evoking the taste and texture of a donut. It’s super simple to make, and if you’re going to try it, my best piece of advice — besides measuring your pan — is to be generous with the Demerara sugar on top. Three tablespoons is more than you think, so don’t eyeball it, and don’t skimp.