Strawberry Cake

So I've been dying to make this Strawberry Summer Cake for quite a while now... I found the recipe a couple week before leaving for ASMS, but was way too busy to make it before the conference. E waited for me to come back to make it, and to be fair I refrained from making it this past weekend in PA (we made cherry pie instead). So naturally we made it the same day I got back into town.

Before baking:


After baking, the strawberries sunk into the batter:


The cake was good. Very good. But not quite the mind-blowing goodness I'd worked it up to be in my head. I think the really, really pretty pictures of the shiny, deep-red strawberries in the recipe fooled me. I liked this cake much better the night we made it, when it was still warm from baking, than I did the next day (today). The strawberries become more or less like strawberry jelly, which made the cake soggy. I'd make this again, but probably when I'd be in a position for most/all of it to be consumed quickly. The other thing I might do differently is omit/minimize the sugar sprinkled on top of the strawberries before baking. Smitten Kitchen says not to skimp on it, because that's what will really encourage the strawberries to become/taste strawberry jelly-like, but I think I'd like the cake better and that it would keep better if the strawberries retained their structure better.