That Bowser Cake

I know you all want to see it. This was a very fun cake to assemble.

The spikey shell is a Fresh Strawberry Cake, which I’ll share the recipe below, and the actual spikes are mini ice cream cones that have been brushed with frosting. In retrospect, I would melt white chocolate and give them a dip, but the frosting worked okay.

For the head and the tail, I tried something new and whipped up a batch of Rice Krispie treats.  What a fantastic molding medium! I’ll definitely be using that again in the future.  To color the krispie treat head and tail a bit, I took some colored decorating gel, thinned it with a touch of water, and then brushed it on like paint.  The eyes were gummi life savers.   Zander loved his cake, and my sister Liz loved the cake, and since it was her birthday as well, that was important.   The fact that it tasted great really helped too, I’m sure.

I found this Fresh Strawberry Cake on the CLBB.  I apologize, because I cannot remember for the life of me who posted it originally.  There were two strawberry cakes, actually, and I saved them in Mastercook a few years ago and promptly forgot about them until a few weeks ago when Zander declared his interest in a strawberry cake.  I thought I could pull one off, I have plenty of frozen strawberries in the freezer, so I just hoped it would taste good. But I’ll tell you, while I was at the grocery store, I walked down the baking aisle to get marshmallows, and I really thought hard about picking up strawberry cake mix.  It was only a buck a box, and it would have been sooooo easy…

But in the end, I made the cake.  My one change was that I used frozen, thawed strawberries, and I pureed them instead of simply mashing them.  The batter made enough for three layers, and it was almost as easy as a boxed cake mix, so I was very glad I went with the real cake.   We all thought the flavor of the cake was excellent, but I thought that maybe a hint of strawberry extract would punch up the flavor just a touch.   The cake was very moist and not too dense, texture wise it was perfect. Appearance-wise though, this is where pureeing the berries may have worked against me, because the color of the cake, once cut into was a strange purpley-brown.  It confused the kids, who thought it looked somewhat like chocolate.  I’m thinking if I’d mashed the berries, it would have been a little lighter in color.  Regardless, if you can get past the appearance, the cake is delicious.  Since I have plenty of strawberries in the freezer, and this cake was so easy to make, I’ll be trying it again a few times to see if I can make it even better. A huge thank you to whoever shared it.

Oh! And as an added bonus, if you’re looking for a new science project for your kids, have them help with this cake.  The step of mixing the baking soda into the yogurt is not to be missed, as it makes the yogurt foam up, and it’s really cool to see.

Fresh Strawberry Cake

1                cup  butter — softened
2 1/2           cups  sugar
4                     eggs
1                  T  vanilla extract
1/2             t  salt
1/4           cup  plain yogurt
2                  t  baking soda
2               cups  mashed strawberries
3               cups  all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9×13″ baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat 1 minute. Stir in vanilla and salt.
3. In a small bowl, stir together yogurt and baking soda. Add with flour to egg mixture. Beat well, then stir in strawberries.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 30 minutes, or until top of cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool cake completely before frosting.