My Birthday Cake 2014

Every year (mostly), I make my own birthday cake. 

I really don't mind doing it because I loooove to bake. 

It all started a few weeks ago. 

My sister mentioned to my three year old nephew that my birthday was coming up. 

He told her that he wanted to back me a chocolate strawberry cake because it was his favorite. 

He is just the cutest little guy. 

I decided to invite him over to help me make the cake the day before my birthday. 

It was adorable, and he actually helped a lot more then I thought he would!

This year I am doing something a little different in terms of ingredients. 

I didn't have the time to bake a whole cake from scratch with everything else we have going on right now, especially with an impatient little helper.

So I decided to purchase a box cake and premade icing. 

I know, I know. 

But I wasn't going to just make a cake and slop some icing on it. 

I'm going to revamp the boxed cake!

What you need; 

~ Chocolate Cake Mix (I opted for gluten free as some family members attending are not eating gluten)

~ White Icing 

~ 1 packages of strawberries

~ 3 Eggs & 1 cup of water (for cake)

 

Simple right?  

Step#1; Mix chocolate cake mix according to directions on the box and bake for appropriate amount of time. I baked my cake in two round pans for easy stacking. After they have finished backing, set to the side to let cool completely. 

Step#2; While cake is baking wash and haul all strawberries. I sliced mine and tried to get them to all be the same thickness (tried being the key word here!). Set aside in fridge.

Step#3; Scrap icing into kitchen aid mixer bowl completely. Using the whisk attachment whip the icing until it doubles in size. Cover with saran and place in fridge. 

Step#4; Once cake is completely cooled, pick the cake you would like for the bottom layer and place on a flat sturdy surface to hold cake. Gently cut top of cake to make it as completely flat as possible. Dont worry if its not perfect, mine wasn't! 

Step#5; Then generously add vanilla icing and carefully spread evenly on cake. Next add a fully layer of your sliced strawberries. 

Step#6; After that I sliced the next cake as evenly as I could and carefully placed on top of the other cake.  

Step#7; Repeat step #5 using the remaining icing and strawberries. I added an extra glob of icing to the top of out cake just for fun!