MmmMmmMmm-Monday - French Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Filling and Buttercream Icing

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of hosting a baby shower for my very good friend Kelley.  The theme was "Oh Snap!  Kelley is Pregnant" because she is a photographer who is extremely passionate about what she does!  For the party I made a French vanilla cake with strawberry filling and buttercream icing.  It was absolutely delicious and a huge hit!  It is, by far, the best icing I have ever had in my life!

I want to apologize in advance that this is the only picture I have of the cake...isn't it cute though??

Up first, the actual cake...

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 tbsp pure vanilla extract (if you use imitation vanilla your cake will suck and you'll go to baking hell...just sayin')

Preheat your oven to 350.  This recipe makes enough batter to make two 9 inch round layers, or if you're like me and don't have a 9 inch cake pan, two 8 inch rounds plus an itty bitty 4 inch round for you and your husband to share after the party.  You can either butter your pan or use bakers spray.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside

Beat the butter for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.  If it isn't completely soft before starting you'll have to beat it for at least the full 3 minutes.  Add the sugar and beat another 2-3 minutes.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly and scraping the edges of the bowl between each addition.

Start adding the flour mixture one cup at a time and alternate with the milk (ending with the flour mixture).  Add the vanilla, mix well, and pour into the cake pans.  Do not fill the pans more than halfway or these cakes will take forever to cook!

Bake for 27-35 minutes.  The cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack.

Up next, the icing!  I'm not a huge fan of the taste of powdered sugar, and most recipes I've seen for icing use that over regular sugar.  So when I found out I could make buttercream using regular sugar and flour I was pumped.  This is seriously the most delicious icing recipe ever.  And as a sugar lover, I don't say that lightly!  I made a batch of icing, then use part of it to make the strawberry filling.

Ingredients

• 7 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 1/2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups salted butter
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Strawberry Jam (to taste - I used a big old spoonful for my filling)
• Cut up strawberries (to taste)

In a small saucepan, whisk flour into cream and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.  It will be the consistency of a thick pancake batter.

Remove from heat and let it cool completely.  If you don't let it cool completely it'll just turn the icing into a soupy mess once you add it to the butter!!!

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter, sugar, and salt together until light and fluffy on medium high (about 5 minutes).

Add the vanilla to the cream mixture and then add the cream mixture to the butter mixture.

Beat the crap out of it.  Seriously...it make look like it's separating at first, but eventually it'll look kind of like whipped cream (it took me about 5 minutes).

Remove 3/4 of the icing from the bowl and set aside.

Add the strawberry jam to the remaining 1/4 of the icing and mix well.  Taste it and decide if you want it more strawberry-y.  Like I said, a heaping spoonful was enough for my taste.  Then add the chopped up strawberries.  Be sure to taste a bite of icing that has a chunk of strawberry in it, because it is flipping delicious.

And your icing is done!!

Once your cakes have cooled completely, put the strawberry icing between the layers and ice the outside of the cake with the plain buttercream.  Then decorate however you please!!

Oh, and enjoy ferociously licking the bowl of icing after you've finished decorating your cake!!