Okay, first off, let's all take a moment to be impressed that I made this lovely strawberry cake with fresh strawberries:
("Mini-wave in celebration of me!" ~Chandler)
And now, the comedy-of-errors story of me baking the above cake...
Laura wanted to celebrate her birthday with the Friendsgiving crowd tonight, so I called Chettles and volunteered to bring a strawberry cake (she'd mentioned fruit-flavored cakes being her favorites). My original plan was to grab one from Merritts Bakery. But when I was at Reasors getting the ingredients for the Oreo balls a few days ago, I saw a strawberry cake mix and thought baking one sounded kinda fun. I was on the phone with Mom, who told me the Duncan Hines strawberry mix and icing were both good, so I decided to go for it!
Literally my only goal for Saturday was to bake this cake, which would be a pretty manageable plan for most women. After a quick Reasors trip for some strawberries and white chocolate (a last minute fun thought I had), I spent the rest of the day in loungy clothes watching movies on Disney+ and baking. =) In spite of all that follows, I had fun with it... and I enjoyed my 7 phone calls with Mom throughout the day. LOL
I decided to amp up the box recipe with some tips I found on Google: adding an extra egg, using half buttermilk and half milk instead of water, and using melted butter in place of oil. As the article I read said, "More fat equals more flavor!" lol I dunno about the cake yet, but I was thoughtful enough to taste-test the dough, and it was delish! ;-)
So while that was baking, I figured I could go ahead and dip the strawberries. I washed them and then melted the white chocolate chips in the microwave. I've always laid this stuff on wax paper before and never thought much about it, but I wanted a pic and thought more color would be pretty, so I grabbed a plate to set them on... look how nice...
It's pretty rare for me to make layer cakes, and that's because I always (meaning all two times) have issues getting them out of the freaking pan. Why is that harder than it should be!?? lol I definitely greased the pans before baking, and I did the knife around the edges to loosen them before trying to get them out. I waited about 10 minutes for them to cool a little, then I turned them onto one rack and then another (because my fear of getting burned is very real). lol The first layer came out perfect, like a strawberry-flavored champ. The second one, not so much! I pounded on the bottom of the pan and three fourths of it came out, with the rest of it hanging back in the pan. So I tried to awkwardly piece it all back together. Then I called Mom for probably the fourth time that day! lol
Per Mom's advice, I put that broken layer on the bottom, and it wasn't noticeable once the frosting was added (very carefully). I jazzed the canned frosting up too, adding cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar. It seemed way too thick, so I added a bit of milk... but the milk came out too fast, so my first layer of icing was definitely too thin. Then I poured in lots more powdered sugar, and all was well again. lol Sugar to the rescue!
Meanwhile, I came to grab my strawberries off the plate, and this happened. lolol The white chocolate was very much glued HARD to the plate, but the strawberries slipped right on out of their shells. I definitely laughed about that for a few minutes! A facepalm kind of moment.
I had plenty more white chocolate, so I re-melted it and dipped them again, laying them on wax paper this time. (The plate pic was prettier, so I wasn't wrong on that. lol)
And after alllll that, I realized they didn't actually fit around the bottom of the cake pan the way I'd first imagined they would. So I called Mom again and debated what to do. If I had left any of the white chocolate chips unmelted, I would've just placed a simple row or two of those around the bottom, and this story would be over now. But no.
I thought about piling the dipped strawberries all over the top of the cake, but I wasn't sure how that would work. Mom said it would be pretty if I sliced them to put around the bottom, so I decided to give that a try. (I looked at images for that, and it was really pretty!) But it meant I had to pull them out of their white chocolate shells for the second time to slice them all up! Not a good day for the white chocolate. lol
I carefully lined them up around the bottom of the cake, sticking them into the icing. Then I tried leaving a few with the white chocolate on top... but I didn't know how to arrange them, and I didn't like their leaves being in the icing...
Around 3 hours later, in the middle of watching my fourth or fifth movie for the day, I had a lightbulb moment where it occurred to me that strawberries produce juice when they're in sugar. None of the things I'd read had mentioned that or said to wait to add them until right before you serve it, but I thought I should check it... and sure enough, the whole cake was swimming in a pool of strawberry juice and thinned out icing (this pic was after I'd already cleaned a lot of the juice up). I said "Nooooo" out loud, but no one was there to hear me, so I called Mom again and laughed about it. lol
So as step #357 of my patented strawberry cake-baking process, I removed all the happy fresh strawberries, cleaned up the drippy puddle, and tried hard to smooth out the strawberry-juice-infused icing!
(I may try adding them back again at the last minute, but I'm not sure that's a good idea.) Either way, just know that this strawberry-soaked, plain-Jane looking birthday cake was actually an all-day project made with love ...and a lot of laughing at myself!
It was quite pretty once upon a time, and I have the pictures to prove it. But I'm very hopeful that it will still taste great! And if not, then we'll celebrate Laura's 40th with birthday Oreo balls! lol
...Next time, I'll stick with ordering Merritt's. ;-)
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