Strawberry Mouse Cake

Over the weekend my whole family got together to celebrate some birthdays, we do this kind of thing every single month. Between the 30ish of us there are so many birthdays that we have to double and triple up to celebrate. This month we celebrated my mom and my cousin Elicia. My mom hosts all of the birthday dinners at her house for my dad's side of the family, and since it was her birthday we went out to eat pizza at our family's favorite pizza place and then came back to her house for cake and presents. 

My brothers and I almost always make her birthday cake for her and this year she requested Strawberry Mouse Cake from Southern Living magazine. 

Photo: Iain Bagwell; Styling: Heather Chadduck and Caroline Cunningham

I used the photo from the Southern Living website because I want you to see what it could look like. I let my 16 year old brother frost our cake, so it was a little crooked and didn't have the fancy swirls in the frosting  like this cake does. It didn't effect the taste though I promise. 

This is our cake, we didn't even garnish it. How lazy is that?!

Honestly, this cake was delicious. I wasn't sure if I would like it or not because I don't like strawberries (I like the flavor just not the fruit) and this cake is bursting with berry goodness. The vanilla cake was so moist and had such a nice texture that I think I am going to start using that cake recipe as my new standard vanilla cake. The mouse and frosting were both packed full of strawberries and it was just a nice spring/summer dessert.

We did make one change to the recipe. The frosting calls for butter, powdered sugar, and fresh strawberries only, and I guess our berries weren't juicy enough because we were basically making noodles not frosting, so we added just a small splash of the whipping cream you need for the mouse and it was perfect. Definitely a cake I would make again. 

Carrot Cake

My husband loves carrot cake so of course that is what I made for him for his birthday... back in October. Geeze I have been a bad blogger.

I used a recipe from Epicurious for Carrot Cake with Maple-Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 cups canola oil
• 4 large eggs
• 3 cups grated peeled carrots
• 1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped walnuts
• 2 tablespoons minced peeled ginger

Icing

• 10 ounces cream cheese (such as Philadelphia), room temperature
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 12 walnut halves (for garnish)

For cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Butter two 9-inch-diameter cake pans. Line bottom of pans with waxed paper. Butter and flour paper; tap out excess flour. 

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in medium bowl to blend. 

Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. 

Stir in carrots, walnuts (I leave the walnuts out, we aren't big fans) and ginger. 

Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool cakes in pans 15 minutes. Turn out onto racks. Peel off waxed paper; cool cakes completely.

 

For icing:
Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar and beat at low speed until well blended. Beat in maple syrup. Chill until just firm enough to spread, 30 minutes. 

Place 1 cake layer on platter. Spread with 3/4 cup icing. Top with second layer. Spread remaining icing over entire cake. Arrange walnut halves around top edge. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover with cake dome; chill. Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes before serving.  

I made this cake the day before and then froze it in saran wrap. This let all the flavors get happy overnight and it made it much easier to cut into more layers for a taller more impressive looking cake slice.

 After filling between the layers with frosting I put the cake in the freezer to harden it up a little bit so it would be easier to frost the outside layer.

 Too bad when I took the cake out before dinner it melted. OOPS. I guess next time I'll need to adjust my frosting or leave it in the refrigerator until closer to dessert time.