This is literally the easiest cake on the planet to make, with the best sweet strawberry flavor ever! When I say easy, I mean embarrassingly easy because this is a "trick" recipe that uses basic grocery store ingredients but tastes completely from scratch. I promise that if you make this for Valentine's Day (or any occasion), yours will be the best treat your friends and family have!
My grandmother used to make this cake for us and it is absolutely incredible! She cut the recipe out of a newspaper in the 1950's and I still have that faded brownish-yellow scrap of paper in her cookbook that I inherited last year when she passed. And of everything she had, her cookbook was the number one thing I wanted and continue to use every week. Every spring my grandma would make this cake for my mother because it is her favorite. Last fall I made it for HOP (Husband of Pearl) and he went bananas over it! Then, much to my surprise, my 18 year old niece made a special request that I make it for Christmas this year. Christmas? What?!? She was headed home from college and asked that I make it for her. My cup runneth over! I was so excited!
Here is what you need, and what to do:
* For the cake -
1 box white cake mix
1 small box of strawberry Jell-o
3/4 cup oil (plus one tablespoon)
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of strawberries, mashed, with their juice
4 eggs
3 - 9" cake pans and Pam for Baking (with flour)
*For the frosting -
1 stick of room temperature butter
1 box of powdered sugar (16 oz)
1/2 cup of strawberries, mashed, with their juice
(I like to double the frosting, BTW!)
How to make:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the cake mix and Jell-o in a bowl. Add the water and oil and begin mixing either in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer. Add 1 egg at a time and continue mixing well after adding each egg. Then add in the strawberries and juice and mix well. Spray 3 cake pans with Pam (with flour for baking type) and evenly divide the batter. Pop them into the oven on the center rack for 30 minutes. (You can also bake 2, remove those and then bake the remaining pan if your oven doesn't house 3 cake pans on the same rack side by side.) Cool the cakes.
However....I have learned that not all ovens bake alike. For example, my oven bakes warmer than the degrees entered. So I set my oven to 325 degrees and cooked the cakes for 25 minutes. I inserted a toothpick into the middle, which came out clean and my cakes were done! So experiment with yours. Try the cake at 350 for 20 minutes and test. If the toothpick comes out clean, take the cakes out!
Once the cakes are cool, cream the butter and powdered sugar together and then slowly add the room temperature strawberries and juice. HINT: I double the frosting recipe because my family likes it sweet and overflowing! Frost the cake as you normally would!
I would really love for this amazing cake recipe to become a favorite in other families. I hope you will give this incredible cake a try and I promise that you won't regret it! Tag us in your photo! Wishing all of you a very happy Valentine's Day! PS - this recipe also makes amazing cupcakes! Just add a bit more powdered sugar to stiffen the frosting!
Love,
Pearl