Have some berries in the freezer? Make this: Strawberry Lemonade Cake

So here it is. A vibrant, delicious, moist, rich, and unique cake. One that screams spring and summer like no other. One that screams strawberries like no other.

And one that disappears like no other. (Except perhaps, these.)

Here’s what I did:

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and grease your cake pans. I used two 8″ – but 9″ pans would work just as well.

Next, mix your dry ingredients – a white cake mix (18.25 ounces) and a box of strawberry gelatin (3 oz).

Next, mix your wet ingredients. Pull out that blender from the cupboard. (Come on and do it – you can always make those smoothies you’ve been wanting to do all summer while your cake’s in the oven anyway.) Add in your frozen strawberries – a 15 oz package or a pound of your own frozen ones from this years crop.

Then add 1/4 cup of water to your blender.

Then add 1/2 cup of vegetable oil to your blender.

Put 4 eggs in that cake mix/gelatin mixture. Yes, 4 of them!

Then, add in your strawberry puree mixture and mix it real good-like with your electric mixer.

Awww man – you’ll be smelling strawberries through your entire house at this point!

Next, you’ll wanna divide your batter between your two pans.

Let them bake for 20-25 minutes, or until that wooden toothpick (or fork, or knife, or whatever you use to test your cakes with) comes out crumb free.

And take deep breaths through your nose. I promise you won’t regret it.

Unless you hate strawberries. 🙂

Next you can frost away. I used my favorite Swiss Meringue Buttercream Recipe from here. Instead of adding vanilla extract to it though, I used lemon extract. That’s where my strawberry lemonade came from. You could also do what Paula Dean would probably do if she had time to think about it – you know if she weren’t so busy making other amazing cakes all the time….a “regular” lemon buttercream.

Either way – here’s what I got. And it turned out lovely.

As for explanation on those monogrammed initials – it was a baby shower cake. The Mother-to-be’s initials were going to “match” the new baby girl’s initials. (How sweet, right?!)