Strawberry Cake

Strawberries are one of my favourite things about Spring and Summer - I can never get enough of them and I eat them every day, so of course I'm always excited to try new recipes with strawberries and this Strawberry Cake will delight any strawberry lover. There's strawberry in the cake AND in the icing.

It's Freaky Friday time again already! This season seems to have flown by and embarrassingly enough this is my first blog post since the Freaky Friday Spring Addition! Oops... If you've forgotten how Freaky Friday works, a group of bloggers get randomly assigned to cook/bake a recipe off another blog, write a blog post showing your chosen recipe and posting on the specified day. It's a lot of fun and a great way to try something a little different and learn about how others (and for me, others on the far side of the world!) like to cook.

This season I was absolutely delighted to be assigned to An Affair From The Heart, a favourite blog of mine, hosted by a very dear blogger friend Michaela. A stay at home mom (and wife) to four lovely children. Her blog is filled with delicious recipes for main meals (family friendly of course!) and yummy desserts and baking.

I had such a tricky time picking just one recipe to share with you all. I manage to cut down my shortlist to 11 recipes. I left the decision to my hubby in the end, once Id cut the list down a bit! Some of the (many) recipes that caught my attention where Western Burgers, Old Fashioned Strawberry Icebox Cake,  S'More Banana Bread, Loaded Mac 'n Cheese,  Peanut M&M Peanut Butter Pie, Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, Strawberry Cake .... and the list just went on!

Strawberry Cake won the race in the end and it was a clear winner when we had our first slice! This cake is incredibly easy to make and takes only minutes to whip up. This was my first time using a boxed baking mix (they aren't very big here in NZ) so I had no idea how cakes make like this turn out but I was so pleased with the moist, flavour packed cake.

My cake wasn't quite as beautifully pink, but I think that's entirely down to a difference in ingredients between New Zealand and the United States!

I'm just so excited that it's coming back into Summer and strawberries are filling the shevles in the supermarket again!

Strawberry Cake

Serves 10-12

Cake:

1 box white cake mix
80 g butter
3 eggs
3/4 Cup milk
1 80 g package (3 oz) strawberry jelly
1/2 Cup strawberries (fresh or frozen)

Icing

170 g butter, softened
3/4 Cup strawberries (fresh or frozen)
4 1/2 Cups icing sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F). Grease the sides and line the base of two 22 cm (9") round cake pans.

2. Combine cake mix, butter, eggs, milk, and jelly in your mixer or a large bowl.  Mixed for 2 minutes. Gently fold in frozen strawberries.

3. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for approximately 25 minutes. Use the "toothpick test" to make sure cake is done in the middle.

4. Turn out on a cooling rack to cool completely.

5. Prepare the Frosting: Combine frosting ingredients until frosting is desired consistency. Add more sugar to thicken, more strawberries to thin. Frost in between layers, and the outside as you would any cake.

6. Garnish with fresh strawberries if desired. Don't do this step too far in advance, as they will become syrupy.

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