Little Miss Birthday and her Strawberry Cake



I was left no choice but to make this cake. I mean, I guess I could have ordered it from a bakery, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that, I would have been going against my homemade ethics. Besides, it was another baking challenge for me.

Strawberry flavoured cake with cream cheese frosting was the request from Little Miss Birthday herself. This birthday girl I am talking about, her name will not be mentioned for the sake of embarrassing her. She actually took it upon herself to notify us(work peers) of exactly what was expected for her birthday celebration at work. Here's the e-mail she sent to me and Irina(another friend at work), titled, MY BIRTHDAY.

"I’m sure you all want to know what kind of cake I would want for my office party.
Well, let whoever know that I want strawberry cake (not cut up strawberry’s in white cake either) a cake with strawberry batter and cream cheese icing. I will accept nothing less!
My gift should be whatever you all decide, but must be expensive. Oh yeah, and I want Papa John’s pizza to go along with my cake. I am serious here." And then this picture was inserted at the bottom. Haha!

When I read this e-mail I was laughing so hard, Irina and I gave the Little Miss Birthday a hard time but, what the birthday girl didn't know was that if she hadn't have sent that e-mail, we probably would have forgotten all about her birthday. haha- I am just keeeding Angela! oops!

Well, Little Miss Birthday a.k.a Angela...... this is for you. We love you and you do deserve the best. :)

Here are the details on the cake:
I found the strawberry cake recipe from this wonderful site called Joy the Baker under the cakes section HERE. I didn't change much, only little things here and there as I usually do. Which in this case got me in a tiny bit in trouble-you'll see. :0

Southern Style Strawberry-FLAVOURED Cake Recipe:
1 box regular white cake mix
1 3 oz. package strawberry jello
1 tbs. self rising flour
4 tsp. granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup Finely diced fresh strawberries

-Preheat the oven to 350F
-Combine cake mix, Jello, flour and sugar in a large bowl. Mix well
-Add the oil and mix
-Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
-Add the water and strawberries and mix well.


-Pour batter into whatever cake or cupcake pans you are using evenly. If using cake pan oil and flour.
-Bake cake for 25-35 minutes(cupcakes 15-20), or until a tooth pick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean and the layers pull away from the sides of the pan(see why this statement is important below). Let cake cool before icing.
*I made a little 6 inch cake, 20 mini cupcakes, and 6 large cupcakes with this recipe*

Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe:

1 1/2 pk cream cheese, softened
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbs. lemon juice
Sliced strawberries for decorating
- Beat cream cheese and butter until soft and smooth.
-Add powdered sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and lemon juice. Whip well.
And here's a good tip that Joy the Baker added in her recipe...(If you would like a smoother consistency, and a splash of milk. If you would like a thicker consistency, add a bit more powdered sugar) .

The cake was perfect, In the middle, I filled it with mascarpone cheese and fresh sliced strawberries. Then frosted it with cream cheese frosting.

The cupcakes turned out great too, except one thing.... and it's kinda' a big thing. I stored the cupcakes at room temperature overnight and had planned to frost them in the morning. I woke up to find that the cupcake papers had fallen away from the cakes. I have never seen this before. Weird! I think the cake was just so moist with the jello and all that the papers did not stick to the cake. I should have known and read recipe statements more carefully, like the one above, "...and the layers pull away from the sides of the pan." This is fine in a cake pan but not cupcake papers. I ended up just taking these nice and fancy papers I had used off of the cupcakes and decorating them that way. They looked fine, but they would have been more profesh looking with the papers. I have learned a very good lesson and it was that not all cake recipes can translate into a cupcake recipe. I always assumed you could make any cake recipe and put them in cupcake-form-nope! not this recipe. I overcame this unexpected hurdle and it really wasn't all that bad. I would rather the aesthetics be affected than the taste-and this cake was so full of wonderful strawberry goodness- I would do it all over again. :)

Great suggestion Angela!
The End!

5 comments:

Gigi said...

sensational cake Ivy! This cake has been on to bake for awhile now. I can't wait for cooler weather so I can bake this!

Yogihan said...

Ivy, your blog makes me so hungry! That cake looks like someone had dreamed it up after watchjing too many episodes of Strawberry shortcake. It is the stuff dreams are made of for little girls (and grown up ones too). I might have to put this on my birthday wishlist and distribute this recipe to my friends. :)

Jenn said...

this cake looks yummy. I have to make a cake for my nephews first birthday this weekend....any idea's for me???

Manali said...

Thanks Ivy for posting this recipe. I am going to try this soon. Looks yummy tastes even yummier..:)

Manali.

SilverMoon Dragon said...

That's perfect! My Little Miss Soon-to-be-Three wants a Strawberry flavoured for her birthday too. And I've had so much trouble finding a good recipe. I even tried the jello in a cake mix type, and it didn't come out very strawberry ish. What is white cake mix, can i ask? Is that Vanilla cake mix, or butter cake mix? It's hard to translate American recipes like this to Australia :(