Strawberry Shortcake Cake

This past weekend, my mom finally returned home from her 3 week long trip to China where she and my dad picked up my new little sister Myra-Frances.
This called for a celebration, which means cake.
This was Myra-Frances' first taste of an Apron Afternoon dessert. A quizzical look came across her face after first taste. I imagine she was thinking "What the heck. They never gave me this in China!" She didn't really know what to think of this new food "cake", but after her first bite she quickly learned that it was good...real good, and that she needed another bite. My mom, although not new to cake, acted as though this was her first cake as well. She took down about half of the cake after she had been on a diet of rice and unidentified meat for three weeks in China...I don't blame her.  

I found this cake on Pioneer Woman's website. She created this masterpiece and she is a saint for sharing it. It's now added to my list of favorite cakes. The only difficult part about this cake is the assembly. Trying to frost over strawberries is almost impossible. The directions say to try not to "disrupt" the strawberries while frosting....I disrupted them. But I kinda like the look of strawberries peaking out from the frosting. It almost looks like I did it on purpose.

The cake part of this cake is not terribly sweet, which helped balance out the sweetness of the strawberries and cream cheese frosting perfectly. The strawberries' juices seeped into the cake and made it extra moist. My brother Sam who doesn't even like fruit was taken by this cake. I think this cake has magical powers because everyone was obsessed with it...except for two of my younger brothers, but they refuse to eat fruit even if it is covered in frosting.


Final verdict: Make it. You might eat the entire cake in one sitting and that is A-okay. 


Strawberry Shortcake Cake
From: Pioneer Woman
Cake
- 1 1/2 cup Cake Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 9 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, Softened
- 1 1/2 cup Sugar
- 3 whole Large Eggs
- 1/2 cup Sour Cream, Room Temperature
- 2 teaspoon Vanilla

Icing

- 1/2 pound(1 package)Cream Cheese, Room Temperature
- 2 sticks Unsalted Butter
- 1 1/2 pound Powdered Sugar, Sifted
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 1 pound Strawberries

Directions

Cake

IMPORTANT: Be sure to use a cake pan that’s at least 2 inches deep! Before baking, the batter should not fill the pan more than halfway.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl or onto wax or parchment paper. 

Get all the clumps out.

2. Cream butter with the sugar in mixer fitted with paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well each time.  

3. Add sour cream and vanilla and mix until combined. 

4. Add sifted dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just barely combined.

  

5. Pour into greased and floured 8-inch round cake pan. 

6. Bake at for 45 to 50 minutes, or until firm. 

7. Remove from cake pan as soon as you pull it out of the oven, and place on a cooling rack and allow it to cool completely.

8. Stem strawberries and slice them in half from bottom to top.

9. Place into a bowl and sprinkle with 3 tablespoons sugar. Stir together and let sit for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, mash the strawberries in two batches. Sprinkle each half with 1 tablespoons sugar and allow to sit for another 30 minutes. 

Icing

1. Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment. Mix until very light and fluffy.

Assembly

1. Slice cake in half through the middle. 

2. Spread strawberries evenly over each half (cut side up), pouring on all the juices. Place cake halves into the freezer for five minutes, just to make icing easier.(I totally forgot this step...maybe that is why my strawberries were so "disrupted")

3. Remove from freezer. 

4. Use a little less than 1/3 of the icing to spread over the top of the strawberries on the bottom layer. 

Very disrupted strawberries.

5. Place the second layer on top. Add half of the remaining icing to the top spreading evenly, then spread the remaining 1/3 cup around the sides.

  

 Leave plain OR garnish with strawberry halves.
Let chill in the fridge for a few hours to let the cake and frosting set. Best served chilled.

ANNNNDDDDDD..introducing the newest baker to Apron Afternoons...Chef Myra-Frances!

Irish Cream Cookies & Guinness Brownies

Bailey's Irish Cream Cookies

St. Pattys + Sarah and I together = Great excuse to bake with Baileys! The original recipe made 80 cookies! And, as much as I would like 80 cookies, it didn't seem prudent to make all of those for just the two of us... so we halfed this. The original was for 40 sandwich cookies made with a small clover cut out. We could only find a clover cutter made for giants. So we made single clovers and sandwich rounds.

Ingredients

- 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

-1&1/2 cups sugar

-1 egg

-1 egg yolk

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-4 cups AP flour

-1 tablespoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1/2 cup Baileys

Directions:

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add egg and egg yolk. Mix in vanilla extract. Alternate adding in dries with Baileys till combined.

2. Wrap cookie dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate a few hours to over night.

3. Roll out dough & cut out cookies using a shamrock cookie cutter. Chill cookies at least 30 minutes before baking to keep their shape.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-13 minutes rotating once halfway through.  Start checking them after 10 minutes.  As soon as they get a little blonde on the edges, they're done. *This recipe yields about 80 shamrock cookies, 40 sandwich cookies.

Baileys Cream Filling

Ingredients:

- 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

- 2 & 1/2 cups powdered sugar

- 6T. Baileys

Directions:

1. Cream butter and sugar, adding a little sugar at a time so you don't have a sugar shower.

2. Add extract and Baileys.

3.Fill cooled cookies.

Guinness Brownies

Ingredients
1 cup flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces dark bittersweet chocolate (chopped or measured chips)
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups Guinness Extra Stout beer, room temperature, no foam
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375. Grease 9x13 pan.
2. In medium bowl, whisk flour, cocoa powder and salt until evenly combined. Set aside.

3. In double boiler over low heat, melt butter, bittersweet chocolate and white chocolate chips. Stir constantly until melted. Remove from heat.

4. In large bowl, beat eggs and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy; about 3 minutes. Add spoonful of egg mixture to chocolate mixture to cool it off (you don't want to cook your eggs.) Add chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat well.

5. Add flour mixture to egg mixture and beat until just combined. Whisk in beer. Pour in chocolate chips and stir to combine. Pour into prepared pan.

6. Bake 25 to 30 minutes (checking for doneness starting at 25 minutes). Brownies are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let brownies cool to room temperature before cutting.