Strawberries and cream pistachio cake

Happy Sunday folks! It’s gloriously sunny and boiling hot for the long weekend. Today you’re in for a real summery treat: a-not-too-sweet pistachio and cardamom cake topped with a burnt strawberry and cardamom cream cloud — billowy, pale pink, somewhere between crème Chantilly and a cheesecake. Very good indeed.

British strawberry season is here, and with it comes my annual strawberry hyper-fixation - a condition that necessitates the obsessive consumption of these sweeter-than-candy seasonal berries throughout the day.

For those of you who are new here it is relevant at this point to explain that I split my time between the UK and the US, and this year I have been spending much of my time at home in the English countryside. Joyfully, we are experiencing the kind of spring that reminds me of my childhood: long, sunny days punctuated by proper rain and stormy clouds, which means the strawberries have ripened quickly, producing an extraordinarily juicy sweetness.

In my neighborhood - about an hour and a half outside London - we are spoiled with pick-your-own farms, old-fashioned greengrocers and fruit markets. Even the major supermarket chains seem to be competing over who can source the best strawberries. Marks & Spencer, for example, (somewhere between Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods for my American readers), is selling British strawberries that are stupid-delicious. Their ‘Diamond’ variety is so intensely flavored that they taste like jam.

A few weeks ago, I made a strawberry and sumac olive oil cake that I proceeded to hand to almost every guest who visited. It’s bloomin’ gorgeous. The sumac does something strange and brilliant to the fruit: deepening it, teasing out the suggestion of caramel where there is none. This week, I am back with another strawberry cake that will earn its place in your baking repertoire. Keep reading.

The cake

• This cake is made from the sort of effortless one-bowl batter that feels almost too simple for something so good. Fragrant with cardamom and richly studded with pistachios, it is a challenge to resist the temptation to cut a generous slice whilst still warm. But wait! I can guarantee that you won’t regret expending a modicum of effort on the second stage of the recipe.