Strawberry Shortcake

 

Strawberry shortcakes are one of my favorite cakes to make. They look pleasing visually and taste delicious! Strawberry shortcakes also remind me of spring, when all the berries are ripe and in season. These cakes have a definite WOW factor to them, yet they are easy peasy to make!

 I made an easy vanilla bean cake recipe and substituted butter for oil, so that the cake would be more moist and less dense. I mixed the oil, sugar and eggs first for a long time on a medium speed until the 3 were incorporated and became into a thick jelly looking paste.  Then I added the vanilla and vanilla bean paste. Lastly the flours and leveners.

There are many things in the baking world where you can cut costs(for example on dry goods) but one I will never cheap out on is the Vanilla. You can smell and taste the difference with ARTIFICAL vanilla compared to PURE vanilla. I love adding a fresh vanilla bean or vanilla paste to my batters and icings. Those little black specks make me feel as though I'm eating a high quality product. Because let's face it...vanilla beans aint cheap! 

 I made a Swiss Meringue Buttercream, this is the real deal. People and bakeries everywhere always call Frostings "Buttercream". When it fact it is not a "Buttercream". A buttercream will always have EGGS in it, that will be heated and whipped into a meringue and with added softened butter. A frosting does not have eggs, the main ingredients are usually butter and icing sugar. Sometimes people cheapen out on butter and use shortening instead. Which all I have to say is YUCK! You can always taste the difference between butter and shortening. Shortening leaves a nasty waxy taste in your mouth.

I baked the cake at 350F, for about an hour. I let the cake cool for a bit the I flipped it out and sliced the layers.

Here, I added simple syrup to the cake, then added the buttercream and fresh sliced strawberries. The look of your cake is just as important as the taste. Don't ever hold back on decoration or flavor. The smallest touch makes the biggest impression.

 I decided to use a small rose tip on my piping bag to create the frills on the top of the cake. And a small star tip for the rosettes on the bottom.

 

 I love the way this cake turned out, unfortunately I didn't get to eat any of it. But the good news is I had cake scraps left over from the top. So I made myself a ghetto little piece of cake scrap strawberry shortcake. And that was divine!