Strawberry Cake
This cake is not one of my favorites (I’m more the chocolate type), an oh-my-goodness-you-have-to-make-this recipe, and it’s not a part of our daily diet so I can’t count it as worthy minutia, but I’m going to include the recipe here anyway. The reasons are:

1. It is the tastiest strawberry cake I have tasted.

2. My little girls love pink and cake, so I have a feeling I will get this request again and I wanted to record the recipe for myself.

3. Some of you might have children (and spouses and friends and siblings) who also love pink and cake and therefore could use a recipe for a pink cake. The cake certainly is pink.

4. It is an easy recipe.

5. I already told you about this cake, and it is only fitting that I show you the end result and tell you how I got there.

Note: I used my canned strawberries to make the puree, and instead of using a full cup of milk, I used ½ cup of the canned strawberry juice and ½ cup of milk.

2 cups white sugar
1 package strawberry gelatin (3 ounces)
1 cup butter
4 eggs
2 3/4 cups cake flour, sifted before measuring
2 ½ t. baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ cup strawberry puree

Cream the sugar, gelatin, and butter. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. In a separate bowl combine the cake flour and baking powder. Alternating with the milk, add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter. Add the vanilla and strawberry puree.

Grease two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with circles of wax paper. Divide the batter between the two pans and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for ten minutes before running a knife around the edges and gently dumping them out onto a rack to cool.

Cool the cakes completely before icing and decorating according to the Birthday Kid’s specifications.

Updated on July 13, 2008
Now that there is only about one-sixth of the cake left in our fridge and we are a couple days out from premiering the Strawberry Cake, I feel a pressing need to add some thoughts and comments.

First, it really is a very good cake. I can tell because I’ve had a chance to share it with some people and I have neglected to do so. If I hoard something, it means I like it.

Second, the cake needs to be stored in the fridge. We ate it when it was fresh, and while good, it is even better chilled. Then it gets all creamy and cool and smooth.

Third, some of you wondered what I did for icing. I put cream cheese frosting in between the layers, and I frosted the sides and top with whipped cream (tinted pink, of course). It is a rich cake and best eaten in little slivers.

Fourth, I’m not a fan of jello or of processed ingredients, but the jello is a nice addition to the cake. There is good strawberry flavor and a little bit of a gelatin texture to the cake, which is actually very nice.

Fifth, I think this cake has a ton of room for variations. Imagine this: the cake is made with lemon jello, lemon zest, and lemon juice, and lemon curd is spread between the layers and the whole creation is frosted with whipped cream. Or try a lime cake. Or a cherry cake with chocolate. Use jams and puddings in between the layers. What about an orange cake with bits of pineapple? See what I mean? Lots of room for playing around. If you give it a shot, let me know how it turns out—I’m all ears.

We have several very important birthday traditions in our house, mostly revolving around food.

1. The Birthday Kid gets to choose the birthday cereal.

2. The Birthday Kid gets to choose what’s for supper.

3. The Birthday Kid gets to choose the cake/dessert. In fact, until they reach age 5 or so, they think that birthday and cake are synonymous, as in “I want a chocolate birthday with pink icing.”

4. The Birthday Kid is exempt from chores.

So, birthdays are really big deals, anticipated for weeks ahead of time (and sometimes months, as is the case for Sweetsie, who is counting down the six months until she turns five). In fact, they get so excited that they pop out of bed way too early because they just can’t wait to dig into their sugary bowl of breakfast cereal. A sugar-based diet for a sleep-deprived, highly-excited child is not smart. But that’s how it’s done around here. I figure I get my way (ha!) the other 361 days, so I best just shut up and buck up.

Miss Becca Boo picked Lucky Charms for her breakfast cereal. She wanted the generic kind that comes in a bag because it’s bigger than the box (it was one-half ounce bigger, but half the cost, so I didn’t argue). I did make them eat a little bowl of granola first because I couldn’t bear the thought of them starting their day with nothing in their tanks but sugared air, but then I let them eat their fill, mostly—I did have to put the breaks on Yo-Yo Boy.

For morning snack we had bananas (a specialty item here) and lunch was meat-and-cheese bagel sandwiches and carrot sticks. Afternoon snack will be Cheese Curls, and supper will be cheese fondue with broccoli, apples, hot dogs, sausages, toasted bread chunks, and grapes. And strawberry cake for dessert.

Miss Becca Boo keeps sticking her head out of her room (she’s in rest time), checking to see if I’ve started on the cake yet. She’s getting rather anxious, and I certainly don’t want to cause the Birthday Girl anxiety, so I’d better get busy.

Seven years ago, right about now, 6:20 am, Mr. Handsome and I had just arrived at the hospital after a quick stop by the Seven-Eleven for a phone card. Labor progressed quickly, and by 10:15 I was pushing Miss Becca Boo into the world. Here are some excerpts from her birth story (her’s was my first natural birth, since Yo-Yo Boy was a c-section baby).

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The midwife explained that for the next push I needed to stop after the head came out and then she would tell me when I could push for the body. The contraction came and I was determined to get the head out in one long push, so I pushed as hard as I could. I felt something give and the midwife said, “Okay, stop. Alright, never mind.” And there was a little (BIG) baby lying on the plastic—she had come out in one push. I just hung on the bar and looked at the bloody mess of a human. The cord was covering the crotch, and I watched as the midwife lifted it up to check the sex. We both saw at the same time that it was a girl. A girl!

The midwife rapidly suctioned her out and then handed her to me. I was shocked by how hot that little body was, uncomfortably so. Miss Becca Boo only cried a little. Her eyes were wide open and she was looking at me. She was all cheesy and bloody, and the first thing I said to her was, “You are so ugly!” Her nose was smashed flat and pressed to the right. Her one ear was perfectly flat. Her fingernails were long and the skin on her hands and feet was papery. I didn’t cry like I thought I would and neither did Mr. Handsome. I was just so intent on watching the whole process and soaking everything up. It was such a novel happening, and I felt like a Curious George, asking all sorts of questions.

The nurses helped me to take off my gown so I could nurse, and Miss Becca Boo latched on immediately and nursed for the whole time they were sewing me up. They draped a thick, heated blanket over us, and I kept peaking under it to see what she looked like. She was lying across my belly, looking at me with her big eyes, nursing, looking just like a little princess or like one of those voluptuous women of the renaissance who would lie naked on ornate sofas. She looked like she held the world in the center of her hand.