Strawberry and Cheese Coffee Cake

When my new CSA emailed and said they wanted to give us a share of their early strawberry crop, I was thrilled. I’ve had such bad luck picking strawberries at the grocery store, that I was really excited about getting what I hoped would be juicy, delicious, organically grown berries. I’ve been sucked in too many times by the big red glossy berries at Publix. When I get them home, they’re hard and tasteless and I feel stupid because I fell for it again. I wasn’t disappointed in the berries from Delvin Farms. They weren’t huge like the commercially grown ones but there were tasty and sweet. YAY! Finally.

I ran across this recipe in my new Southern Living cookbook but it was using blueberries. When I found out we were getting strawberries, I knew they would be perfect for this. I swapped some of the butter for applesauce and switched whole wheat pastry flour for half of the all purpose flour. This cake was moist and not too sweet. It’s good with or without the crumb topping.

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