Strawberry Week–The Beyond All Strawberry Cake!

What do you do with 1000 freshly picked strawberries when you children don’t like jam?  You try to combine as many little awesome treats into one big awesome treat.

I had an idea to make an ice cream cake but then that came to an abrupt end.  So I moved on :)

Then I took a step back and refocused.

So many strawberries…what’s a girl to do???

Ok, so here’s what I came up with.  Vanilla/Strawberry cake with Champagne Strawberry Buttercream.  Then I covered it with fondant and made strawberry accents and voila!  It kind of ended up looking like a Bolero hat, perfect in time for next weekends Kentucky Derby! 

Recipe: Strawberry - Vanilla Cake

• 2 sticks butter, room temp
• 2 1/3 cup sugar
• 5 egg whites, room temp
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cup flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
• 2 cups finely chopped strawberries

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.
4. Fold in strawberries
5. Weigh the batter and divide by the number of layers you’d like.  I made 3.  Pour into the pans and bake for 15 minutes each.
6. When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes.
7. Cool completely before icing.

Strawberry Champagne Buttercream

• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 4 tbsp champagne
• finely diced strawberries

1. Cream butter and shortening together.
2. Add sugar and slowly add champagne
3. Beat on medium until smooth.
4. Fold in strawberries.
5. If not using immediately place in fridge as it will separate due to the champagne.

Abby and Rowan made strawberries too but Abby ate hers before I could take a pic, here’s Rowan’s!

Thanks for looking!