Re: HAPPY BIRTHDAY (Strawberry scratch cake for my daughter's 1st birthday)

I know, I know, it's been a while.  See, I've mainly been using this site for coursework, uploading pictures of food items that I prepare in class.  I remember making a few posts about things I've done outside of class (which tends to be much more food items) yet, I didn't continue that.  Well, I've decided to start back on that path as well as anything I produce in class.  Hopefully I can keep up.

So for this post, we have a nice strawberry cake, with a strawberry filling, and strawberry icing.  Yeah, so you've heard of Death by Chocolate...I'd have to call this one Death by Strawberry.  I enjoyed making it.  I searched for a few days for the perfect recipe to use as my daughters first birthday cake.  I came upon a few and I eventually saw one that stuck out, tried it (made 6 cupcakes with the batter) and my wife and I both agreed that it was a keeper.  I did tweak the recipe a little.  I used a little more strawberry puree in the cake batter as well as the icing.  Little butter here and there, little more egg yolk, etc.  Overall, I think the cake came out wonderful.  I was even able to practice my piping skills on this one...which made it even more fun.  I'd have to admit, it's not the most beautiful work in the world, but for my first cake, I believe it turned out pretty darn good.

Here are a few pictures of the process (after baking to finished).

Cake Cooling

Cake top cut for for flat surface.

Strawberry filling applied to bottom cake.

 

Top  cake put in place and circle on top to press cake down.  I then put the cake into the refrigerator so that the filling could set.

Strawberry butter cream frosting applied after filling finished setting.

I made a white/vanilla butter cream frosting to use on the base and top edge piping using a # 224 drop flower tip.

The HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINA applied with a #5 plain tip.

Strawberry filling close-up.



I really can't wait until the next time I make a cake and practice my piping skills.  As I said before, it's not the best, but it's pretty darn good and I'm feeling on top of the world. :-)  Did I mention...the taste was absolutely WONDERFUL!



FYI

Recipe's that I tweaked came from:  Cake, Strawberry Feeling, Frosting:  I can make butter cream on my own :-)