Valentines Day is just around the corner – so why don’t you try something a little different this year by showing the ones you love in baking form this year?
Whether its a husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, best friend or situationship, make an impact by making them a cake. This is a strawberry cake – 3 layers of strawberry cake, filled with strawberry jam and finished with a tangy strawberry cream cheese icing.
This would be the ideal car to make for valentines day due to the colour but can be enjoyed all year round.
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Cake:
250g butter.
250g granulated sugar.
4 eggs.
1 tsp vanilla extract.
80-100g strawberry jam (homemade or good quality store bought).
250g self raising flour.
Cream Cheese Icing:
300g butter, at room temperature.
300g icing sugar.
150g soft cheese, at room temperature.
50-100g strawberry jam (homemade or good quality store bought).
Filling:
Strawberry jam (homemade or good quality store bought).
Decoration:
Heart sprinkles.
Method:
To get started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep work. I like to start by weighing up all of the ingredients, preheating the oven to 180˚c/350˚f and getting anything else you may need ready, such as a stand mixer and tins.
To start, place the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat them together until they are lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.
Once you’ve achieved light and fluffy, you can go ahead and add in the eggs, one at a time – beating well in-between each addition. Repeat the process until all of your eggs have been fully added. This is also the time you’ll add in the vanilla.
Now add in the strawberry jam and mix until its fully incorporated – this will change the colour of the mixture, which is expected.
After the jam has been added and is fully incorporated, you can go ahead and add in the flour and mix until a clear cake batter has formed.
Give the bowl a really good scraping down, this is just to incorporate any bits thats may not be fully incorporated. Take the cake batter and split it between your three six inch cake tins, spreading and levelling as best as you possibly can to ensure the most even bake.
Transfer into the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean, when inserted into the centre.
While the cake is baking in the oven, its the perfect time to make the cream cheese icing that will be used to fill and decorate the cake.
To make the cream cheese icing, take a bowl and place in the butter and icing sugar – beat the two together until they are lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency, this may take a little while.
Once you’ve achieved the desired consistency, you can gradually add in the soft cheese – don’t add it all at once, please take your time when adding it into the mix.
After all of your soft cheese has been added, you can then add in the jam – you will find adding this in stages really helps to keep a thick consistency. Once all of the jam has been added, make sure to give the bowl a good scraping down
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