French Strawberry Cake ~ BWJ

Woo Hoo, I got to decorate a cake this time around! I knew I bought that 55 piece cake decorating kit for something. And we found it delicious as well. My Mother-In-Law, who doesn't care for strawberries, even went in for a second piece. The original recipes from the Baking With Julia cookbook can be found by Sophia, a 15 year old baker in our group here, and by Allison here.

There were changes of course. First, I didn't read the directions clearly. I'd like to blame the directions themselves for not being clearly written, but had I read them over a few times I would have known the butter was to be saved for last instead of heading into the mixing bowl right away with the eggs and sugar. Jumping head first into these complicated recipes tends to get me in trouble. Luckily it usually works out in the end. While they were quite thin, they were still tasty.

Then there were my planned changes. I decided to make 2 separate cakes instead of one cut into three layers. That is the cut corners and make life easier girl in me coming out. And I changed the frosting to my favorite Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting. I didn't feel 2 tablespoons of sugar was much sweetness in a frosting.

Finally, I decorated it the way I wanted to. I had extra strawberry compote since I only had one layer to fill instead of two, so I used it on the top of the cake as well. Hopefully we'll have more cake decorating projects in the near future. It was my favorite part of this endevor. Well, maybe a close second, only to eating it!