White Cake with Strawberries

Who doesn't love the phrase "Free Cake?"

I have been hankering to make and decorate a cake lately since I finally have all the tips and equipment. I really just wanted to get some creativity out of my system and also get in some practice. My plan was to take the cake to work. Since I know several people are watching their figures these days, I went with something a bit more light.

I used a boxed mix for a white cake and followed the directions using eggs whites. I moistened the layers with a lemon simple syrup, layered strawberries in between and put icing only on the outside of the cake. It really made for a lighter but tasty recipe. My coworkers loved it!

While the cake was baking, I made the lemon simple syrup. It is a recipe from Martha Stewart and it is SO "simple" and delicious. Simple syrup is used for many things and bakers often use it to lightly dampen the layers of a cake before assembling it. (I used some of the leftover syrup to sweeten my tea.) It gives great flavor and keeps the cake super moist.

Lemon Simple Syrup


 Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• Zest from 1 lemon, plus 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

 Directions:

1. Heat sugar, zest, and 2 cups water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil. Pour through a fine sieve* into a medium bowl; discard solids. Let cool completely. Stir in lemon juice. Syrup can be refrigerated, airtight, up to 1 month.

*I don't own a fine sieve, so I laid a clean dish towel in my strainer and poured the mixture through it. 

Once the cake cooled, I leveled off the layers with a serrated knife and used a pastry brush to apply the syrup. I was afraid I would use too much syrup and as a result used too little. I would have liked a stronger flavor of lemon in the finished cake. I will have to research using simple syrup for cakes a bit more and, of course, practice will help.

Next, one layer at a time, I piped a ring of buttercream around the edge to act as a sort of dam for the strawberries. I didn't want the juices from the strawberries to seep out into the icing on the sides of the cake. I sliced the strawberries super thin and arranged them all pretty like. I love the contrast of colors in the picture above. It calms me. Ahhhhh.......

Okay, side note. If you ever have to slice a lot of strawberries, I have a handy tool for you. I am a creature of consistency and the old-school thought that if something worked for my grandmother it will work for me, so I often laugh at modern day shortcuts. Ha, Ha, I say! But this, kids, is plenty worth it. 

Joie Simply Slice Strawberry Slicer

I found mine at Kroger on clearance for 2 bucks and bought it because I thought it was so cool, but was sure it would be one of those things that either wouldn't work or I would never use. I'm glad I was wrong. Click on the caption in the picture to order it from Amazon.

So back to the cake...

Once I had all the layers assembled, I iced the cake with a thin crumb coat of buttercream. I have said it before and will say it again: a crumb coat is necessary for a clean and finished looking cake. Plus, it causes me to swear less when I'm putting on the final coat of icing so it's good for everyone else around, too.

Since it was cold outside, I sat the cake (covered in my cake keeper) on our picnic table to set up for an hour or so.

Next, I put the thicker final coat of buttercream onto the cake and smoothed it out. This was tough. Again, I am pretty new to cake decorating AND I am an extreme perfectionist. Those two things sometimes work against each other. I wanted the icing the be incredibly smooth with no imperfections. Needless to say, that single coat of icing took me about an hour to get the way I wanted. Don't be like me. 

Finally, I piped the accents on with white and blue icing. Remember how I mentioned before that you don't necessarily need a coupler for piping? Simply use a disposable piping bag (the only ones I ever use), snip off the end of the bag and slide in your piping tip. If you know you will not need to change out your tip for any reason, this is the way to go.

A small icing spatula was used to create the detail on the sides.

And here's a look inside:

If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments!