This strawberry short cake variation requires patience to make but is such a treat to eat. It's fresh and light but also makes you feel so special when you eat it because of the pretty pink layers. I've joyfully named this my Strombre-berry cake.

As the unofficial, official birthday cake baker in our family this is the cake I made for my sister's birthday. She loves strawberries and she loves a light, sweet, cake. The layers all taste a little bit different, with more strawberry flavour the deeper down you get.

I try to keep my recipes from scratch or with very little processed ingredients but to achieve this specific flavor and recipe it's hard to do without jello or food colouring. This is a very unconventional recipe but bear with me.

Strombre-berry Cake Recipe

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 small package strawberry flavored Jello (3 ounce)
1 cup butter, softened at room temperature
4 large eggs at room temperature
2 1/2 cups of cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup strawberry puree made from frozen or fresh strawberries or strawberry jam
1 cup homo milk, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 cups of strawberries sliced
1.5L of whipping cream
1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar.
2 envelopes of Whippit
Pink Food colouring or beet colouring.

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), or 325 degrees F if you are using convection.

Grease and flour three 8 inch round cake pans. 9 inch will do in a pinch. Do not skip this step. this is a very tender cake and will resist coming out neatly otherwise. For added measure I used a circle of parchment on the bottom for a super easy removal.

Cream together the butter, sugar until light and fluffy in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

Combine the flour, baking powder and one third of the jello powder in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a large measuring cup measure out 1 cup of milk. Separate egg yolks from whites and place egg whites in very clean medium mixing bowl. Set egg whites aside. Add the yolks and vanilla to the milk. Add puree and softened jam here if you wish. Stir it up into a pink slurry.

Into the butter sugar mix, mix the pink flour dry mix alternately with the milk egg wet mix. Once you have a combined batter set aside.

Return to the bowl of egg whites. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. You'll need to work quickly from here as the lightness of the cake is counting on the air in the whites. Stir as little as possible.

Quickly and gently divide the batter evenly between two bowls and one prepared pan

Set the pan aside and do nothing to it. Leave it pale pink.
To one bowl add 1/3 of the remaining Jello powder, and a tiny bit of food pink colouring. Stir gently. You are aiming for a medium pink lemonade pink colour. Pour contents into pan and smooth surface evenly especially to the edge as it will tend to raise more in the middle.
To the last bowl add the remainder (2/3) of the Jello powder, and a generous amount of pink food colouring. Stir gently. You are aiming for a watermelon pink colour. Pour contents into pan and smooth surface evenly especially to the edge.

This will achieve a graduated colour effect once baked. Keep in mind that the colours will bake up a little lighter so make sure you are happy with the three colours before baking. Make sure there is a good difference between the layers.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a small toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Allow cakes to cool in their pans over a wire rack for about 10 minutes then tap out to cool completely so they don't crumble.

While the layers cool, whip the whipping cream, confectioner's sugar and Whippit together. Wash and slice the strawberries thinly. I sliced it about 3 mm.

Assemble the cake with the whipped cream and strawberries between each layer going from darkest on the bottom to lightest on the top.

Ice all sides with remaining whipped cream and decorate as you wish. I made a little mini bunting, topped it with the most beautiful strawberries in the lot and sprinkled some dried hibiscus on top. So cute.

Chill for 15 mins bit before serving. It will be a very high cake.