Nisamina: Second Birthday Cake

For Emeline's birthday this year, I decided to make her a strawberry themed birthday. I tried to think of what things are Emeline's favorite, and I only came up with a few including Elmo and strawberries. I am not ready into the land of animated character themed birthdays, so I decided to go with something a little more simple: Strawberries. Not Strawberry Short Cake the character, who by the way is totally from the 80s in my book, but just straight up strawberries. And what a delicious theme that would be too! So I decided to try out some strawberry cake recipes to see which one would make the cut for a birthday cake. Here's what I tried....

First cake: Strawberry Cake from Martha Stewart
http://www.marthastewart.com/336020/strawberry-cake

I forgot to take pictures of mine, but it was delicious. Needs no accompaniment or icing, it's a very dense rich cake. Was good with milk on it to soak into the dense cake. I liked this cake a lot, but I thought it might be better for a breakfast or brunch, or dessert too of course, but just didn't seem quite right for a birthday cake.

Second cake: Strawberry Shortcake Cake from the Pioneer Woman
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/strawberry-shortcakecake/

And here are the photos of my cake. I tried to frost it completely so the strawberries wouldn't show, just to look a little more like a potential birthday cake that could be done up and decorated.

This cake also tasted great. Moist, especially after soaking up the strawberry juice, and dense too. I was skeptical at first about the cream cheese frosting with the strawberries, but it tasted really good. I did do a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for Emeline's first birthday, so I thought maybe I should try something different for this one, but this is definitely a good cake and birthday cake option.

Third, final and winner cake:
http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com/2011/05/strawberry-shortcake-cake.html

The last, but definitely not least cake was a more traditional white butter cake with fresh strawberry filling and whipped cream frosting. Emeline LOVES whipped cream, so that with the traditional nature of this cake won me over. I had the opportunity for a few different versions. For her actual birthday at home, I made the full cake version as in the recipe above. Here are some assembly and final cake pictures.

But for Emeline's birthday party I wanted to make a cupcake version, but as you know, I like to practice this sort of thing first; so for Easter, I did a trial run. They turned out great. I forgot to take pictures of the process, but I just baked the batter a little shorter for cupcakes, then I cut little holes out of the centers of the cupcakes (they were refrigerated, and this helped a lot), put a spoonful of strawberry filling, and then piped a simple swirl on top with a star tip. The flower cupcake liners made them extra springy.

Since the cupcake version was a hit, I went ahead with full scale production ;) for the birthday party. I had to make 50 cupcakes, and because this batter was so fluffy, I think I only had to do a double or 2.5 times amount to get that many cupcakes.

The other thing I tried for the first time was stabilized whipped cream. I've never tried this, but have been wanting to because you know how easily whipped cream falls and is difficult to pipe with. I wanted the swirls on the cupcakes to hold their shape in the unseasonably hot April weather we were having. This recipe worked great, and the whipped cream held for the cupcakes just fine, and even until all the leftovers were eaten (a few days later) in the fridge.

So here are the cupcake photos!