Strawberries and Cream

It's strawberry season, which of course makes me homesick for those luscious CA strawberries that are WAY overpriced in our stores out here....

In honor of that, here's a recipe that turns out a beautiful 3-layer cake from scratch when done right.

Strawberries and Cream Cake (originally from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups white sugar
1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup strawberries, pureed

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced

1/2 cup margarine, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups quartered strawberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 9 inch round cake pans.
2. In a large bowl, beat sugar, gelatin and butter until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Mix flour and baking powder, and beat alternately with the milk into the sugar mixture. Fold in 1 teaspoon vanilla and pureed strawberries. Divide equally into three 9 inch round cake pans.
3. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then remove from pans and cool completely.
4. To make the filling: Beat whipping cream, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla on high until stiff. Fill each layer with 1/3 of the whipped cream and 3/4 cup sliced strawberries.
5. To make the frosting: Beat the margarine, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla until creamy. Spread over the sides of the cake, and pipe an edge of frosting around the top of the cake.
6. Spread remaining whipped cream on cake top. Top with quartered strawberries.

Submit your own recipes to the Carnival of the Recipes by emailing your link (if you have a web presence) or your recipe (if you don't) to recipe(dot)carnival(at)gmail(dot)com

This week's CotR is hosted by Bev at bebere.com. Next week the CotR stops here! And of course thanks to SWWBO for starting the whole thing....