41-Food in the Belly

So today was my mom's birthday, and I decided to bake her a cake (with the help of my adorable little sister). I'll admit before I even let you see the finished product that I was a bit ambitious when choosing my recipe. I may have over-estimated my baking/cooking abilities (and/or the size of my kitchen and extent of my baking utensils), but all in all, the final product came out looking alright and tasting delicious.
Without further ado, I present to you another food porn post!

I'll be honest. I let the recipe's name fool me. After all, it is called Easy Layer Cake with Custard and Strawberries. It couldn't be too difficult, right? Thus my journey began..

First of all, we got all of the ingredients together. This should have been my first clue that it wouldn't be quite the "easy" undertaking I was lead to believe...

Step one: Mix up the box cake mix, pour it into three pans, and pop it into the oven. Success! (That was easy!)

Next: mix up the custard!

I always love adding vanilla to things. I have no idea why.

Mmm, vanilla.

Commence custard compounding!

Now it's starting to look a little more custard-y!

Time to make the frosting. Since essentially this was just me beating heavy cream for a solid 7 minutes, I didn't think pictures were necessary.

Oh look! The cakes are done!

While the cakes cool, we got our strawberries ready.

First, we had to set some aside and cover them in chocolate!

This part was actually a LOT easier than I anticipated it being. However, fair warning: melting white chocolate chips is impossible. We omitted that after two failed attempts.

Now to start making the filling...

Time to start putting it all together. Honestly, this is where things got a bit tricky.

Got all my layers cut and and as even as possible.

Cover layer one with frosting, custard, and filling? Check.

Repeat on layer two? Check.

All three layers are stacked, and now covered in custard and strawberry filling.
Okay, so I know it looks heinous. This is what I was trying to avoid. But it's not done yet!

Now cover it all in frosting. Phew, starting to look slightly less awful.

Add the Pirouettes. Looking better and better with each step!

Add some cocoa powder. Better, still.

Add the chocolate covered strawberries and POOF! It looks like a legit cake!

The finished product!

And please believe, it was DELICIOUS!

My mother doesn't typically eat cake, which is why finding the 'perfect cake recipe' was a near impossible task from the start. But I was determined, and when I found this recipe (which seemed like it wouldn't be too sweet, and had a good bit of fruit in it), I knew I had found what I was looking for. The verdict? Well, I successfully got my mother to eat an entire semi-big slice of cake. I will count that as a major success. Furthermore, my entire family loved it, and I can happily say that the cake is nearly gone (and I will point out: there were only 5 people here to eat a 3-layer cake), so all in all, if you've got the time, the talent, and the patience to tackle this beast of a cake: go for it!

Recipe can be found here.

Flickr | Twitter | Formspring