Cooking: Strawberry Lemon Floret Birthday Cake

We had a sudden burst of summer this week--from snow flurries to eight-five degrees! It felt lazy and wonderful and got me thinking about the stream of birthday parties that are coming up. Such a fun season. Are you thinking about parties too? With the warmer weather we've been bringing home lots of strawberries and it reminded me of Tess's birthday cake from last summer--I called it the Strawberry Lemon Floret Cake. I thought I'd share the recipes and how-to in case you are looking for a cake to bake. This frosting is absolutely to die for! A small bowl of it and a spoon would make me perfectly happy. If you like strawberry you have to give it a try.


The cake is made with this lemon buttermilk cake recipe and my own lemon strawberry buttercream frosting recipe, which is below. My good friend from around the corner, and cake baker extraordinaire, Liz, shared the secret for getting a good crumb layer of frosting on the cake: freeze the cake layers before frosting! The frosting "freezes" a bit as you spread it and the crumbs stay in place. By the time the cake is decorated and set out it is appropriately thawed. It worked great!

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks of butter (1 cup total) room temperature
2 blocks of cream cheese (16oz total)
2 lb bag of powdered sugar
2 t. lemon extract
red food coloring

Cream butter and cream cheese with paddle attachment in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add powdered sugar and mix well. Add lemon exract and a few drops of red food coloring to make pink. It's ready to spread!

Lemon Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

2 c Lemon Buttercream Frosting
1/2 c fresh strawberries, mashed
About 2 cups of powedered sugar, or enough for desired consistency

Put 2 cups of the Lemon Buttercream Frosting in a medium sized bowl. Puree or mash about 1 cup of fresh strawberries--not too finely however (I made that mistake), chunky is better. Add strawberries to frosting. Add powdered sugar until the frosting is the right consistency for spreading.

To assemble cake, spread the Lemon Strawberry Buttercream Frosting between the layers.

Spread a thin layer of the Lemon Buttercream Frosting over the entire cake to form the crumb layer.

Then fill a pastry bag with frosting and using a star tip, squeeze Lemon Buttercream Frosting in "florets" all over the cake. This works best if the bag is held directly perpindicular to the cake surface. So I stood over the cake to do the top and sat with the cake about eye level to pipe the frosting on the sides. I think it looks best of the florets aren't in lines but rather clustered together randomly, as they are flowers!

I took the Lemon Strawberry Buttercream Frosting and piped it in swirls on some cupcakes too and topped them with a white gumdrops. Yum!