Strawberry Cake - Almost Made from Scratch

One of the hub's favorite desserts is strawberry cake. Plain box cakes just taste, well, too plain. My sister-in-law make a delicious Paula Dean version which requires lots of butter and lots of time. So thank you to Pinterest I found a recipe for a strawberry cake made from a box cake that requires a little more work than mixing and placing in the oven, but requires a lot less time and ingredients than Paula's version.


"Fresh Strawberry Cake With Cream Cheese Icing" from SouthernPlate.com (the website has great step-by-step directions with pictures!)


Ingredients
1 box plain white cake (I went with the 98cent Pillsbury one)
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 3oz package strawberry gelatin mix
3 eggs
8oz cream cheese at room temperature (icing)
4 tablespoons margarine at room temperature (icing)
3 cups confectioners sugar (icing)


Directions
1. Grease and flower two 8in round baking pans or one 9x13in pan. In a large ziplock bag mash the strawberries and set aside.
2. Beat together cake mix, milk, vegetable oil, eggs and gelatin mix in an electric mixer until smooth. Add in strawberries and juice and mix until well blended. Pour into baking pans and bake in oven at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
3. Allow cake(s) to cool. Mix icing ingredients together with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Ice cake and store in refrigerator.


So, confesion. This might have been slightly on the fiasco side. First, I didn't have cake round cake pans (how do I not own cake pans!). But I wanted to have a 2 layer cake so in an effort to improvise for my lack of a cake pans I baked my cake in a 9x13in pan. Once the cake cooled I transferred it to a cooling rack and cut it in the middle creating two rectangle cakes.

The cakes weren't quite ideal. They weren't perfectly level or even. But, once it's in your mouth does it really matter so much what it looks like on the plate? Haha, of course it does.


In spite of the looks, it tasted pretty yummy. Not quite as delicious as Paula Dean's, but way better than a boring ol' out of the box cake without too much extra effort. Oh and the homemade icing definitely beat store bought!