Strawberry Cake with Vanilla Frosting

I know how many times I have mentioned that I have a pretty big family, and there are a couple times a month where a bunch of my family members have birthdays clustered closely together. When that happens, we have a tendency to have “joint” birthday dinners on the Sunday in the middle of them. Most of the time my mom, my sister and I each make one cake and then everyone gets their own candles to blow out. It also means that some of us piggy-piggies get to have three pieces of cake and call it “sampling.”

This is the cake I brought to a recent “joint birthday”. It was a triple-decker Strawberry Cake with Vanilla Frosting. We still have tons of ripe gorgeous strawberries and the berries coming from the local strawberry farms are so beautiful and sweet. I pureed them and baked them right into the vanilla cake batter. The cake is not too sweet, and when it is paired with sweet tartness of the strawberries and the super sweet vanilla frosting, it is wonderful.

Strawberry Cake with Vanilla Frosting, serves 12
1 cup butter
1 ½ cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 ¼ cups strawberry puree, (about 2 cups fresh strawberries)

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
½ lb butter
3 ½ cups powdered sugar
¼ cup milk

2 cups sliced fresh strawberries

1)Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare three 8” pans with non-stick baking spray.

2) Puree the 2 cups of strawberries in a food processor.

3) Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

4) Add the vanilla and the eggs one at a time.

5) When the eggs are all added, beat the batter for 2 minutes.

6) Meanwhile, mix all of the dry ingredients together r and add it to the batter.

7) Add the strawberries and mix in until combined.

8) Divide the batter between the two pans.

9) Bake the cakes at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until just baked through.

10) While the cakes are baking, make the frosting by whipping everything together.

11) Let the cakes cool.

12) Spread some frosting over the first layer.

13) Sprinkle the 2 cups sliced strawberries over the frosting.

14) Place the second layer of cake on top and repeat the process with the third.

15) Frost the whole cake with the remaining vanilla buttercream frosting.

Slice and Enjoy!