Strawberry Cake

Everyone loves strawberry cake, right!?!  This recipe comes from Southern Living and the only tricky thing about making this cake is the icing getting runny.  You really need to make sure the cakes have cooled completely before icing and I suggest freezing for about 20 minutes in between icing each layer.  The icing tends to get runny and makes some of the layers shift so I like to keep it refrigerated until about 30 minutes prior to serving.  Also, if you are making this on a really humid day, you probably want to add more powdered sugar to the icing to firm it up even more.  I made this cake for my daughter Camille's first birthday, and my daughter Alivia's 9th birthday.  My daughter Alivia requested I cover her cake in skittles (her favorite candy) in a rainbow design.  You can see in the picture that it had been sitting out a couple of hours at a skating party and was beginning to shift, but she still loved it!

Ingredients:

1 box white cake mix

3 oz box strawberry jello

4 large eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup fresh strawberries, finely chopped

1 cup canola oil

1/2 cup milk

Frosting:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

32 oz powdered sugar

1 cup fresh strawberries, finely chopped

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Prepare 3 - 9 inch cake pans with Crisco and flour.

3.  In a large bowl, mix all cake ingredients with electric mixer on medium for 3-4 minutes, scraping down sides as needed.

4.  Pour cake batter into prepared pans and bake about 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

5.  Cool cake in pans for about 10 minutes.  Remove cakes from pans to cool completely.  Put wax paper between layers to cool.

6.  To make frosting, beat the butter for about a minute.

7.  Add powdered sugar and strawberries and beat at low speed until combined and creamy. Set in refrigerator to firm up while cakes are cooling.

8.  Spread frosting on first layer, refrigerate for about 10 minutes.  Frost second layer and refrigerate for about 10 minutes.  Frost third layer and sides and refrigerate until about 30 minutes prior to serving.

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If you want to skip the skittle decor, but make it a little fancy, you can add cut up strawberries in a flower design on top.