Triple Strawberry Cake

The birthday festivities continue! After years of planning birthday parties and staying up long nights making elaborate cakes for said birthday parties, I have come to this conclusion: while that is a "nice to have," most kids will eat any kind of sugar that you put in front of them. 

So, instead of grueling over a hot oven the night before the party, I have taken to this method. I make one cake of the birthday child's choice to be enjoyed by the family (as schedule allows) and then just purchase sweets for the party. Win-win!

Jaxon's choice this year was a strawberry cake and to my surprise, every recipe that I could find had strawberry jello in it - not cool for us vegetarian types. So, this doctored cake mix recipe is what I ended up using:

Triple Strawberry Cake

1 16.25 oz package white cake mix

1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, chopped

2 Tbsp granulated sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

8 oz. strawberry flavored cream cheese

Strawberry Filling (recipe follows)

Strawberry Frosting (recipe follows)

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans. Set aside.
2. Mix strawberries and sugar. Microwave for one minute. Set aside.
3. Place the cake mix, oil, strawberries, eggs, and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute until ingredients are incorporated. Blend with Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more. The batter should look well blended.
4. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it out with a rubber spatula.
5. Place the pans in the oven side by side. Bake the cakes until they are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Remove pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 10 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edges of the pans and invert onto the racks. Allow them to cool completely, about 30 minutes.
7. Meanwhile prepare the filling and frosting (recipes follows).
8. Fill and frost cakes after they have cooled completely.

Strawberry Filling

1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, chopped

2/3 cup water

1 cup granulated sugar

3 Tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup water

1. Combine the strawberries, water, and sugar in a saucepan.
2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Mix the cornstarch/water mixture into the strawberry mixture.
4. Bring the mixture back to a boil and simmer for 5 more minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Remove from heat and cool completely.
6. It will take a while to cool completely and set up. The mixture will thicken like a jelly.
7. When completely cooled, use as a filling in the two-layer cake of your choice.

Strawberry Frosting

1 stick butter, at room temperature

4 cups confectioners sugar

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries and juice

1. Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, about 30 seconds.
2. Add the confectioners sugar and 1/2 cup strawberries and juice. Blend with the mixer on low speed until the sugar is incorporated, 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 1 minute more. Blend in up to more strawberries if frosting seems too stiff.
3. Use to frost the top and sides of the cake of your choice.

Notes:

Cake filling is a slippery bugger - you might want to slide a few skewers into your cake to make sure those layers stay firmly where you put them. (I cut one wooden skewer into three equally sized pieces and that worked just fine - cake stayed put!)

If you're a fan of doctored cakes - check out our Doctored Confetti Cake, which would also make a nice birthday cake.