Going Places, Avoiding Things

Recently there's a photographer who's been appearing all over my feed named Brandon Woelfel, you've probably seen his work with fairy lights:

This recipe has dense vanilla layers of cake and fresh strawberry icing

A few weekends ago I was at a crossroads. It was my turn to bring food for the newspaper and I had a choice: either bring something basic like chips or store-bought cookies(which in their defence is always good), or be waaayyyy extra and make a three tier cake with fresh strawberry icing. Obviously I chose the latter.

Four hours later, two for making and two for getting the icing to look semi-presentable and it was done! If you're not much of a presentation person I'm sure it would take much less time.


All that time ended up being worth it when I tasted the cake. It may have needed a few changes from the original recipes, which were way too sweet for my tastes, but it was an overall success!

Note: If you like your icing sweeter you can add up to one cup (wow!) more icing sugar to the batch.

Ingredients:
Cake

• 4 1/2 cups cake flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup + 2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 eggs + 1 egg white
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon orange extract (optional)
• 3/4 cup + 6 tablespoons milk

Icing

• 12 oz strawberries , fresh
• 1 cup unsalted butter , softened to room temperature
• 3 and 1/2 to 4 cups powdered sugar , sifted
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• dash of salt
• 1 tablespoon whipping cream , as needed

Method:

Let's start with the cake.

1. First you'll want to sift the baking powder, salt, and flour together in a medium size bowl and put it to the side.
2. In a stand mixer, beat the sugar and the butter with a paddle attachment until it's without clumps and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until well combined.
4. Add the greek yogurt and vanilla extract and mix well until fully combined.
5. Pour half the dry mixture into the stand mixture and stir together.
6. Add the milk and mix until fully incorporated.
7. Add the rest of the flour mixture and stir together until the batter is smooth.
8. Set the oven to 325 degrees and cook for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Now for the icing!

1. Take your strawberries and remove all the white centers.
2. Puree the strawberries with a blender or food processor, you should have roughly 1 1/2 cup puree strawberries.
3. Put the puree through a sieve to remove all access seeds
4. Heat a saucepan to low-medium heat and pour your puree into it, stirring occasionally.
5. Keep boiling it until it's thick and around a 1/4th of its original size.
6. Let the puree cool in the fridge.
7. In a stand mixer on medium speed, beat the butter until it's light and fluffy.
8. On low speed, mix in half of the icing sugar into the stand mixer with the vanilla and salt until roughly incorporated.
9. Mix in the rest of the icing sugar and voila! A pretty cake just in time for spring.

^really bad icing job^