Okay, so, today I tried out making a Care Bears-themed cake, specifically one inspired by Strawberry Shortcake. It was quite the adventure, let me tell you!
First off, I gathered all the ingredients. This involved a trip to the grocery store, where I picked up the usual suspects: flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. But, I also needed some special stuff, like pink food coloring and, of course, a ton of strawberry-flavored goodies. I grabbed some strawberry jam, some freeze-dried strawberries, and even some strawberry extract just to make sure that berry flavor really popped.
Once I got home, I started by prepping the cake batter. I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl and creamed together the butter and sugar in another. Then, I slowly incorporated the dry ingredients into the wet ones, making sure not to overmix. The batter was looking a bit plain, so I added a few drops of that pink food coloring until it turned into this lovely shade of, well, strawberry pink!
- Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt)
- Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
- Beat in eggs one at a time
- Combine wet and dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix
- Add pink food coloring and strawberry extract
Next, I poured the batter into two round cake pans that I had greased and floured. I popped those into the oven and baked them for about 30 minutes. You know, the usual toothpick test to make sure they were done. While the cakes were baking, I whipped up some strawberry buttercream frosting. I just beat together some butter, powdered sugar, and a hefty dollop of that strawberry jam I bought. It turned out so good, I had to stop myself from eating it all with a spoon!
Once the cakes were cooled, I leveled the tops with a knife. It was a bit messy. After that I assembled them into two layers, with a nice thick layer of that strawberry frosting in between, and covered the whole thing with the rest of the frosting.
Decoration Time!
Now, for the fun part! I used some white fondant to create little Care Bear faces. I’m not exactly an artist, but I think they turned out pretty cute. I placed those around the sides of the cake. Then, I sprinkled some of those freeze-dried strawberries on top for an extra burst of color and flavor.
Honestly, it took way longer than I expected, and my kitchen ended up looking like a pink explosion had happened. But, you know what? The cake looked amazing and tasted even better. It was super moist and had that perfect strawberry flavor. Definitely worth all the effort. And my son loves it so much!
I took lots of pictures, by the way. I’ll add them later when I have more time.