White Strawberry Almond Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream

Mother’s Day is coming up! Mom is a great mom. You know why? Because we get to eat cake for breakfast.

3rd grade Teacher: Alright class, let’s talk about what do you eat for breakfast.
Other students: Eggs! Toast! Cereal and milk!
My brother Hans: CAKE!
Teacher: Uh, what?
Hans: CAKE! 
Teacher: Uh, does your mom know you eat cake for breakfast?
Hans: Yeah, she gave it to me! We have lots of cake in our house!
Teacher: That’s, um, very …. unhealthy.

Mom is very practical and feeds us whatever needs to be eaten to clear the fridge. Like leftover dessert from last night. So at our house, cake is a normal thing to eat for breakfast.

Wedding cake in general is never very tasty and costs a fortune, so I confess I had a crazy idea to bake my own cake. Mom, being wise, was like “uh huh, yes because you have so much time as a medical student,” but let me go ahead and try a test run.

Although I’ve made Peanut Butter Banana and Black Forest layer cakes before, this is the tallest layer cake yet and the first time I’ve frosted the outside. B loves inhales strawberries and cheesecake, so I invented this cake adapting from food.com and frosting from Wicked Good Kitchen. The cake turned out quite good (and I am not a cake person!), especially as the flavors melded together the longer it was refrigerated.

Alas, even making a single tier is plenty of work, and I’ve got mandatory classes to get my MD degree next spring. So unless I can assemble a cake in 1 day after driving across Texas, I probably do have to resign myself to ordering a wedding cake (and Mom wins). B is pretty disappointed I can’t make our cake, but in the meantime, I can always bake, and thus we can always eat cake for breakfast! Thanks, Mom! Happy Mother’s Day!

White Strawberry Almond Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream

Ingredients
WHITE ALMOND SOUR CREAM CAKE
1 (16.25 ounce) box white cake mix (Betty Crocker)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1⁄2 teaspoons salt
1 1⁄3 cups water (optional: 1 cup water and 1/3 cup Amaretto liquor)
1⁄8 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons almond or vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
4 large egg whites

STRAWBERRY FILLING
1 12 oz bag frozen strawberries
1 lemon, zested
3/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch

CREAM CHEESE BUTTERCREAM
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 (8-ounce) package chilled cream cheese,
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions
WHITE ALMOND SOUR CREAM CAKE
Preheat oven to 325° F and grease cake pans (I used three 6 inch pans) with cooking spray.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.

Pour into your three cake pans, filling each pan 1/2 to 3/4 full. Bake in oven until cake is done (mine took about 40 min). Baking time will vary according to the size and depth of pans being used.

STRAWBERRY FILLING
Combine the sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a small saucepan and cook over very low heat for 10 minutes, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the strawberries and continue to cook over very low heat for 20 minutes, until the strawberries release some of their juices and the mixture boils slowly.

CREAM CHEESE BUTTERCREAM
Using an electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Beat in cream cheese and vanilla, continue beating until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of bowl.
Slowly add 2 cups confectioners sugar while beating until well combined. Adjust additional confectioners’ sugar for your desired consistency and sweetness. Buttercream can be stored in the fridge for several days. When ready to frosting cake layers, beat buttercream again to make it smooth.

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15 Comments

  1. Cake for breakfast? One could do a lot worst! Please make this cake for me in the near future! Sugar? Yes please.

  2. i've definitely feasted on cake for breakfast with my mom before, and i'm sure i'll do it again. the cake wasn't this amazing, though. we'll have to work on that. 🙂

  3. Your site is brilliant. I love your cakes and recipes, but your doodles totally got me. So unique and pretty and fun, well done!

  4. Holy Moly. This looks AMAZING! I love the fact that it's small but really tall. Makes it gorgeous. I need to get some small cake pans now! Such a great idea for making an impressive cake that you can actually finish with a small group of people- I always feel like large cakes go to waste. Pinned!

  5. Hi! I found this post from the BlogHer Network group on Facebook. Your blog is adorable! And this recipe looks amazing. I can't wait to attempt to make this… probably won't look half as appetizing.

  6. I made your cake today for Easter. I sampled the cake with out frosting and that came out great. The frosting is superb. The only thing I’m questioning is the recipe calls for 1 1/3 cups of water. Then it says substitute 1/3 cup of amaretto. My husband seems to think that if you used the 1/3 cup amaretto then you didn’t need the 1 cup of water. I am definitely not a baker but gave it a try his way. After cutting into it a little I felt like it was a little dense. Please let me know which way we were supposed to do it.

    1. I did 1 cup water plus 1/3 cup amaretto since I replaced the liquid 1:1. I will clarify it in the post!

      I half batched it from the original recipe (you see the source recipe in the post since I always link the inspiration) – I didn’t want to change it too much since I was making a big cake.