Strawberry Cake and Fresh Strawberry Frosting

My little girl turns 5 years old today.  I just can't believe I have a 5 year old!  Where did the time go? This year's theme was strawberry so everything was strawberry related.  I'm sort of OCD about party planning. Ask anyone of my neighbors or family and they'll all completely agree.  I try not to bore people will my obsessing but sometimes I just can't help it.

I ordered a cute little strawberry birthday kit off of Etsy. It came with a ton of cute decorations and a bunch of things I didn't need but it was nice to have all those options.

I had a dress made specifically for her, it had her name and and a couple of strawberries on the bodice area and then lots of ruffles and polka dots.  I loved it and my daughter loves wearing it.

I made this strawberry cake with strawberry icing from fresh strawberries, chocolate dipped strawberries, strawberry lemonade and I had several strawberry beverages that I purchased.  See, I have this obsession...

The cake was harder to find a recipe for then you might think.  There are a ton of strawberry cake recipes out there but most are made from a boxed cake mix, I'm sure they're delicious it just wasn't what  I was going for for this party. The frosting was a little easier to find and I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

I loved how moist the cake was and the texture from the cake flour.  It was a pretty pink color and even though the original directions said that I could add food coloring to make it more "red" I decided that I didn't want the added color, it was great just the way it was.

I used another plain buttercream frosting recipe for the piping I did, her color's were pink, white, red and green so the green was very pretty on the cake. She loved it and so did all the guests!

Strawberry Cake

Recipe from CreativeCrumbsNashville

Ingredients

• 8 oz fresh or frozen strawberries
• 1/4 cup milk, at room temperature
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cup cake flour
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 12 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350º
2. Place the strawberries in a blender and blend until smooth. Measure out 3/4 cups of the puree and put that amount back into the blender.
3. Add the eggs, vanilla and milk to the blender and pulse quickly a couple of times to combine.
4. In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) and mix briefly to incorporate.
5. Add the butter and mix until it the mixture looks like wet sand.
6. Slowly add the strawberry mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 minutes.
7. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix for 30 more seconds.
8. Bake in a 9x13 in pan for about 32-36 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
9. If making 2- 9 inch round pans bake for 25 minutes, if making cupcakes bake for 18 minutes.

I will be making this frosting again and again.  It was THAT good.  I loved that it used fresh strawberries but I have to say that I didn't get 6 Tbsp of reduced puree out of the 1 cup of strawberries.  It is possible that I reduced it further then I should have but either way, it was dynamite.  The strawberry flavor was so prominent that people actually didn't believe that it was just strawberries and that I didn't add jello or something else. 

Fresh Strawberry Frosting

Recipe from allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 cup (or a little more) Fresh Strawberries
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3 1/2 cups (divided) confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Cooking Directions

1. Place the strawberries in a blender, puree until smooth.
2. Pour the pureed strawberries into a small saucepan and cook over medium low heat until it begins to bubble, then simmer until it has reduced by at least half. Stir frequently, this should take 10-20 minutes. Let cool completely.
3. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).
4. With the mixer on low, add 1 cup of the confectioners' sugar until blended.
5. Beat in 2 Tbsp of the strawberry puree and the vanilla.
6. Repeat with 1 cup of confectioners' sugar and 2 Tbsp of puree two more times.
7. Add the last 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar last and beat until smooth.