This week started with heavy raining, and more rains are coming in the afternoon, and the sun is playing hide and seek. By the way talking about sun, I get bad headache if I am out in the sun for few hours. I got an episode of headache on this weekend Saturday, it made me miserable. I was able to recover from it on Sunday and able to make this delicious mini strawberry cake with butter cream frosting. As 15th of this month is approaching, it is baking partner’s challenge reveal date. This month challenge was suggested by Divya of Divya’sdiner. She is amazing cake artist, makes beautiful cakes.
So when I asked her, she suggested the recipe of challenge, make a beautiful cake with easy dressing so that it will be helpful for somebody who want to make a birthday cake. She told me she has a great strawberry cake recipe which her clients ask for every time. So I asked her to share that. Even though the original recipe is for two 6 inch cakes, I was afraid to try them. As my hubby’s sugar content is increased due to his corticosteroid medication, we are in challenge of controlling sugar. Even my princess told her dad that when I am big, I will make cake for you papa, but I will remove the icing before I gave it you. You can’t eat icing in the cake. If I make big cake my kids will eat only the icing and by that time they reach the cake, it is a sugar overload they couldn’t finish it. I will be eating the entire cake. So decide to make a mini cake with minimal frosting. It is really delicious cake, since I was making mini cakes, I used different coloring. I was intent to make a ombre effect; however my first layer got little more color, resulting both second and first looks almost same. Next time I am going to skip coloring on the first layer.
I have earlier tried a strawberry cupcakes where strawberry puree is used however it is not cooked like this one. For this recipe you need to macerate the strawberries for overnight, then cook them for 20 minutes and puree them and again cook them for another 15 minutes. Then mix with batter to make the cake. Divya also taught us to how to keep the cake moist and decorate it the next day. I followed everything but reduce the quantities. Only ¾ of the cake recipe was used and one fourth of the frosting recipe.
If you planning to make mini strawberry cake with butter cream frosting for the party then double or triple the recipe. Kids will love it as it has color, tastes good and icing is minimal, one mini cake will make two serving. I made the cake in three 4.5 inch pan then cut it with 4 inch cookie cutter. You need to cut the cake with cookie cutter to give better look, if using minimal frosting, if you covering the entire cake with frosting then you can skip cutting the cake with cookie cutter.
Arrange the cake in layers, pipe frosting in between and top and serve with fresh strawberry. Delicious and beautiful, give it try it won’t disappoint you.
Please take your time to look at other baking partner ‘creations too, also if you want to bake with us next month please shoot me an e-mail.
Delicious strawberry mini cake made with concentrated fresh strawberry puree. decorated with butter cream frosting and fresh strawberry.
Ingredients
- ¾ cup + 1 ½ tablespoons of Cake flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons of Baking powder
- ¼teaspoon of Salt
- ½cup + 1 tablespoon of Sugar
- 4 ½ tablespoons of Unsalted butter
- 2 large Egg whites
- ⅕ cup of Strawberry puree
- 1 ½ tablespoon of milk
- ¾ teaspoon of Vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon Strawberry extract
- 354g of very ripe fresh Strawberries (frozen strawberries without sugar)
- 1 tablespoon of Sugar
- (If you can’t find strawberries, you can substitute with any berries in this recipe)
- ⅓ cups of Unsalted butter, softened
- 11/8 cups of Powdered sugar, sifted
- ¾ tablespoons of Heavy cream
- A pinch of Salt
- ½ teaspoon of Clear vanilla extract
Instructions
- Wash and hull fresh ripe strawberries.
- Cut it in to small pieces and transfer it to a bowl. Add a tablespoon of sugar and give a quick mix. Cover it and allow it to sit for 2-3 hours/ overnight in the refrigerator. Strawberries will become tender and juicy.
- Simmer the tender strawberries in a pan with ¼ cup of water for 20-25 mins in low flame. (Taking care not to burn any).
- Mash it well with a spatula and allow it to cool.
- Transfer the contents to the blender with ¼ cup of water and puree the cooked strawberries.
- Strain the puree to remove any chunky pieces. (Taking care not to add any strawberry chunks, which would result in a mushy cake- We dont need it).
- Again bring the filtered puree to the stove and slow cook it in low flame for another 15 mins. Reduce the puree to ¼ cup. (If you have a little more puree thats fine. You can use that as a filling later)
- Now the concentrated strawberry puree is ready.
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease (butter/shortening) and dust (flour) three 4.5 inch pans. . Take required butter, cut them in to pieces and allow them to sit at room temperature. • Break open the eggs in a bowl and keep it ready.
- In a small bowl, take ⅕ cup of cooked strawberry puree and add 2 tablespoon of milk and whisk it.
- Add vanilla extract & strawberry extract (optional).
- Whisk in eggs, one at a time and keep the mixture ready.
- IIn a large mixing bowl, sift cake flour. If you cant find cake flour, substitute with all purpose flour (APF) and corn starch. Standard substitution will be 1 cup cake flour = 1 cup of APF - 2 tablespoon of APF + 2 tablespoon of corn starch but for this recipe substitute, 1 cup cake flour = 1 cup APF- 1 tablespoon of APF + 1 tablespoon of corn starch) Add baking powder, salt.
- In a a stand mixer with paddle attachment or with a hand held mixer cream the butter and sugar.
- To this add flour, salt baking powder mix and mix well.
- To this Slowly add the wet ingredients mixture little by little and the cake batter is ready. (Taste the batter, you can feel the yumminess of fresh strawberries )
- Divide the batter into three portions, then add red food color, first one don't add any color, second one add 4 drops and then third add 8 drops of red food color.
- Pour the batter equally in to two prepared pans. The mixture will not be runny and it will be difficult to spread. Dont use spoon to spread it, instead drop the pans on the counter multiple times to level the batter.
- Bake it at 350 degrees for 25 mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
- Once done, remove the pans from the oven and let it sit in the counter for 10 mins.
- (Tip: Press the bulges of the cake with a wet clean white cloth as soon as you remove from the oven. Taking care all the time not to burn your hands. You may not need to trim a lot of cake, while stacking also it gives clean edges.)
- Cover it with plastic wrap and transfer it to the freezer for a night. (Make sure your cake is completely wrapped and is not exposed, else your cake might turn dry).
- Remove the cake from the freezer 4 hours before you start decorating and place it at room temperature.
- Using a 4 inch cookie cutter cut the cakes and remove the outer ring.
- In a large mixing bowl, add softened butter and mix it till it becomes creamy.
- Add sifted powdered sugar, heavy cream, salt and clear vanilla extract and mix it for couple of mins. Delicious buttercream is ready.
- Transfer the frosting to piping bag fitted with 1M tip. Gradually pipe the frosting around the rim of cake layers.
- Finish with more icing in the top of cake. Then decorate with a fresh strawberry.
Notes
This recipe is adapted fromhere
Copyright ©2014 Zesty South Indian Kitchen by Swathi(Ambujom Saraswathy) All Rights Reserved.
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This is Swathi ( Dr. Ambujom Saraswathy Ph.D) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread. All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.
Divya Ashok says
Beautiful Swathi! I am sure I am going to borrow this idea
For our house parties.. Love all your pictures
vibha says
yummy cake luks awesome , gud pics too 🙂
Lakshmi says
Lovely looking cake swathi
tigerfish says
I like the vivid and natural "strawberry" color in this cake.
Sindhiya says
Wow!!!!! these look amazing... I have no words
Hema says
The cake looks absolutely gorgeous, would love to taste some..
Tamy says
So cute and tasty looking!
Poornima says
A classic restaurant style dessert.. The cake looks delicious.
Beulah says
This looks so beautiful! Love it!
Marisa says
Dear friend, hope you're getting better. I used to have headaches for a long time but now I'm fine, but I know how hard it is.
You've been brave and done your best. It's beautiful and I can imagine the flavors while eating it.
Cheers from a sunny Valencia.
Sona - Quick Picks says
wwooowwww..Swathy!!! this is soo soo adorable..very pretty and neat. Hope u keeping well. Do drop by..
Gourmet Getaways says
This looks so pretty and nice, Swathi! Can be given as a gift or prize to a sweet girl for doing a great job at school or home 🙂 You just gave me ideas!
Gourmet Getaways
julie says
very cute cake dear..lovely 🙂
Remya says
Yummy yummy cake with cute decoration...............
sangeetha says
Cute mini cake with 3 beautiful colors!!!
Winnie says
What a cute and beautiful cake!!
I looooooooooove the colors and I love strawberry
Definitely worth pinning
Mayuri Patel says
such a cute looking cake, ideal to serve as a dessert.
Deepa says
Simply stupendous and lovely looking cake. Wonderfully prepared.
Deepa
Malar says
Wow, this looks super cute and very tempting Swati 🙂
kaveri says
Mini Strawberry cake looks very cute and delicious too.
sathyapriya says
They look perfect ..By the way i am too scared of sugar too .SO i rarely make cakes at home .Take care of you Swathi
Babitha costa says
cute cake