Strawberry Lemonade Cake

On a whim, I decided I’d like to bake a cake for Easter. I wanted something with fresh flavors, something that gave a wow-factor, and something that matched my tablescape, and the recipe I found did all of those things. I only tweaked a couple of things, and I made those notes below. It also made it extra special in that Gwyn and Frankie jumped in to help, and the end result was just perfect. The recipe comes from Preppy Kitchen, and you can find the original recipe HERE.  The main change we made was  that we felt the frosting was sweet enough and used 7 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting instead of 8, and we had a decent amount leftover. I will share some other little tips along the way below as well.

For the full recipe, click HERE.

Strawberry Reduction
For the strawberry reduction, after adding the strawberries, lemon juice, and sugar and letting it thicken up, I did blend the mixture so it had a smooth consistency, and I would do this again. It was delicious!

Cake Batter
When prepping cake pans, I like to grease the pans as normal, and then add a little bit of flour into the pans and tap it around until the pan is covered. This will ensure the cakes slip put nice and easy.

Gwyn did a great job of mixing the cake batter for us, and  I gave Frankie a quick zesting tutorial and he did a wonderful job with that.  Do not skip the lemon zest in this recipe, it is SO GOOD.

Bake and Level
While not necessary, leveling the layers helps to get a more uniform cake. I simply used a serrated knife and sliced the dome portion off of each cake. Don’t worry about making it perfect, it just helps the frosting go on smoother and makes each layer stack nicer.

Buttercream
 The recipe calls for 8 cups of powdered sugar but we used 7 cups after giving it a taste. It was still a great consistency and was a nice blend of tart and sweet with that fresh lemon juice in there.

Assemble
This was the best part! We decided to add “dollops” along the edges using a piping bag and round tip, and then put the strawberry reduction in the middle, and we did this for each layer EXCEPT for the top layer. We realized the frosting doesn’t pipe well on top of the reduction, so we didn’t add it to the top layer.

This cake ended up being one of those recipes we’ll definitely come back to and I just love how it turned out. It not only tasted wonderful but made for a gorgeous centerpiece.

Enjoy!

<3 Shannon