Cake - Strawberry Delight

I made this cake for my husband's birthday. Its a time taking one, but will yield results :-)This is a strawberry flavoured chocolate cake with strawberry cream and whipped cream frosting.

Steps:

1) make chocolate cake.

2) infuse strawberry flavour

3) make whipped cream

4) make strawberry cream

5) assemble and decorate

1) make chocolate cake

Ingredients:

All purpose flour/Maida - 2 1/2 cups
baking soda - 2 tsp
salt - a pinch
cocoa powder - 1/2 cup
sugar - 1 3/4 cup
butter or vegetable shortening - 2/3 cup
eggs - 2
vanilla extract - 1 tsp
buttermilk - 1 cup
hot water - 1 cup

Method:

In this recipe everything goes into one bowl, so its pretty easy at the same time a very nice rich chocolate cake.

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 13 * 9 cake dish.

In a bowl take sugar and cocoa powder and whisk them together well.

To this add flour,baking soda and salt and mix well.

Next add butter or shortening, eggs, butter milk and vanilla extract and start blending..

When it starts to get thick add 1 cup hot water and continue blending until mixed.

Dont overmix. It should not go beyond 2 minutes.

Pour into dish and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

note: If you use butter, it will weigh the cake down. But if you use shortening it will help cake to rise. So for this cake my personal preference would be shortening. For a plain vanilla cake butter will give more taste and vice versa with shortening.

2) infuse strawberry flavour

Ingredients:

chocolate cake
strawberry flavoured JELL-O powder - 1 package
hot water - 1 cup
cold water - 1/4 cup

Method:

Add hot water to the jello powder and mix until dissolved.

Stir in cold water.

Carefully cut the cake into 2 layers.

Take a fork and poke the cake layers in 1 inch intervals all over it.

Take half of the jello mixture and pour into each layer.

Keep in refrigerator for 2 hours.

3) make whipped cream

Ingredients:

heavy whipping cream - 2 to 3 cups
vanilla extract - 1 tsp
sugar - 2 tbsp

Method:

Key to getting nice whipped cream is to start with everything cold, ingredients and the bowls for mixing.
Add whipping cream into a bowl.
Start whipping slowly until soft peak forms [That is when you lift the whisk it form peaks but falls off].
Now add sugar and continue whipping until thick peak forms [ That is when you lift the whisk peak stay on it nice and thick].
Do not over beat it. If you do so it will start curdling and will change yellowish and then you cannot use it.
Once done keep covered with a plastic wrap in refrigerator unit ready to frost.

4) make strawberry cream.

Ingredients:

fresh strawberries - 1 cup sliced

sour cream - 2/3 cup

sugar - 2/3 cup powdered

whipped cream - about 1 cup[take from the bowl resting in refrigerator]

Method:

This is an easy way for a quick cream.

Mash the strawberries and cook for 5 minutes and cool.

In a bowl add sour cream and sugar and mix well.

Mix in cooked strawberries and fold in whipped cream.

5) assemble and decorate

Ingredients:

strawberry flavoured chocolate cake

strawberry cream

whipped cream

fresh fruits sliced[you can use any of your choice, i have used strawberry and kiwi here]

Method:

Take one layer of cake and pour the strawberry cream and spread evenly.

Place the next layer of cake on top of it.

Frost the cake with whipped cream.

Just spread it all over with a butter knife.

If you have some cake decorating tools u can add more decorations as per your creativity.

I have just given a simple shell border.

Decorate with fresh fruits of top.

Enjoy!