White Cake with Chocolate and Strawberries

While I would consider myself a pie person, I also really enjoy cakes, both baking and eating.  I think that my penchant for pie comes from my July birthday.  Because my birthday is usually in the summer, the ideal celebration dessert is a blueberry mountain pie, a recipe I’ll share for my birthday this year.  It’s a hot cobbler served with vanilla ice cream, and it epitomizes the feel of my birthday, for me.

But, this weekend is Dan’s birthday, not mine.  So, I made a cake.  I prefer chocolate cake with thin chocolate icing , but Dan is a vanilla cake person, and since it’s not my birthday, that’s what I did.  I made a white cake with strawberry icing between the layers and chocolate icing on the top.  Strawberries were on sale at the market, so I bought two packs and garnished the cake with sliced strawberries.

Now, for the embarrassing part.  So this cake was supposed to have three layers.  In fact, I MADE three layers.  But as I was pulling the pans out of the oven, I (typical) dropped the pan.  It slid out of my oven mitted hands and onto the bottom of the oven, cake side down.  I’m not beyond using food that I’ve dropped, but the cake completely feel out of the pan and crumbled at the bottom of my oven.  It was devastating.  And since I have to work today and didn’t have time to repeat the laborious process of making a white cake just for one layer, Dan’s birthday cake was stunted.

I also forgot to add the extracts.  I was skimming the recipe a little too fast, I guess, and just never saw the part of the instructions where they mentioned extract.  The cake still tasted good, and with all that icing you couldn’t really tell the difference.  All in all, it turned out well.  The strawberries jazzed up what I would usually consider kind of a boring cake, and I love the strawberries and chocolate combination!

Basic White Cake
Source: Southern Living, July 2008 

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening

2 cups sugar

3 cups cake flour (or 2 1/2 cups all purpose)

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 tsp almond extract

6 egg whites

Beat butter and shortening with an electric mixer, at low to medium speed.  Beat until creamy, then gradually add sugar.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Combine milk and water.  Alternate adding dry and wet ingredients to the butter, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Use a silicon spatula to fold together.  When you’ve combined all three mixtures, stir in extracts.

Beat egg whites at a high speed until stiff peaks form.  Fold the egg whites into the batter one third at a time.  Grease your baking pans, and split the batter between them (3 8″ baking pans)

Bake at 325 for 30-35 minutes.  Cool for fifteen minutes.

Spread out a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter.  Turn one of your pans upside down onto the wrap, so that the cake is touching plastic.  Use your hands to gently hit the bottom of the pan.  Don’t get violent, but you want to hit the pan hard enough to dislodge the cake.  Move your hand around the bottom of your pan until you hear the cake plop down.  Wrap in plastic wrap and put in the freezer.  Repeat with other two layers.

Freeze for 4 hours.  Unwrap frozen layers, spread on icing.  Allow to stand at room temperature for two hours.  Garnish and serve.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
Source: Southern Living, July 2008

1 cup butter, softened

1 32-oz package powdered sugar

1 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries

Use an electric mixer to beat butter until fluffy.  Add sugar and strawberries, beating until creamy.  Refrigerate until you’re ready to put onto the cake. 

Milk Chocolate Frosting
Source: Southern Living, July 2008

1/2 cup butter, softened

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/4 cup milk 

Use an electric mixer to beat butter until creamy.  Add the remaining ingredients, one at a time, beating until smooth.  Refrigerate until you’re ready to ice the cake.