Strawberry Cake

Our daughter's birthday was last week and we had her birthday dinner on Sunday.  She almost always request strawberry cake for her birthday.  I have this precious memory of her when she turned 4 years old.  For her fourth birthday she wanted Strawberry Shortcake and for those of you who don't remember there was an adorable set of little dolls strawberry shortcake, blueberry muffin etc.  They were really cute and they were even scented.  We had all the little dolls plus the big strawberry house and her books also.  She loved playing with all this and reading about the adventures of strawberry shortcake and her friends.  So for this particular birthday, I had found strawberry shortcake material and made her a little sundress that she wore for her birthday. I'm still looking for the picture.  I wanted to post it with this entry. 

I said all that to say, it still makes me smile when she requests strawberry cake because my mind goes back to that strawberry shortcake birthday party so many years ago.

I wanted to share this cake recipe with you.  It is a wonderful cake and I took my mom's recipe and incorporated it into another recipe and it is wonderful.

2 3/4 cups cake flour (I have used unbleached when I didn't have cake and it turned out ok)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sugar
1 small box strawberry jello
1 cup butter softened,
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 of a 16 ounce container of frozen sliced strawberries (sweetend), thaw and puree in blender
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon of strawberry extract

Grease and flour 3-9inch cake pans.  Sift flour and baking powder together.  In a separate bowl, cream butter and slowly add sugar mixed with Jello and cream until fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time, then beat until fluffy.  At low speed, alternate flour mixture and milk beginning and ending with flour.  Add vanilla, strawberry extract and 1/2 of the pureed strawberries.  Mix well and pour into prepared cake pans.
Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Icing

1/2 (8 ounces) cream cheese
2 sticks butter
3-4 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 (l6 ounces of frozen sliced strawberries) pureed
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Cream together cream cheese and butter.  When mixed well add in strawberry puree and vanilla. Mix well and start adding powdered sugar.  Add small batches at a time until all the powdered sugar is mixed in.

When the cakes have cooled you can begin to put the icing on the cake.  For a garnish on this cake I didn't have fresh berries which would have been best.  I used some frozen strawberries and fresh mint. With frozen berries, I unthawed them and let them sit on a paper towel for about 30 minutes to make sure all the water was out of them. Ideally, fresh berries are the best and I thought blackberries and blueberries with the strawberries and mint would have looked beautiful on this cake.

I let the cake set in the frig. over night took it out the next morning and garnished it a couple of hours before serving.