From the inside out: lemonade cake, lemon glaze, strawberry lemon mousse, strawberry frosting.
Instead of making my lemon cake, I thought: ooh! maybe I'll make a lemonade cake instead -- who knows what the actual difference is, aside from lemonade mix...it just sounded good to me. So I used this popular food channel personality's recipe. I made some slight changes, as I used my own white cake recipe and used lemonade vs. pink lemonade mix. I don't know if it was the mix or what, but the cake was on the dry side (didn't overbake either). Nor did it taste as lemony as I was expecting.
I ended up making a lemon glaze to generously brush onto the inside layers, hoping that would help both the lack of lemon taste as well as its dehydration.
I made a strawberry {lemon} mousse to go between the cake layers. Such a good choice. The original recipe is just strawberry. But I wanted the strawberry and lemon flavors to marry together, so I added some fresh lemon juice and lemon zest to the mix. The mousse is fantastic on its own. But it's sooo delish with the cake.
For the outside, I used Sprinkles' strawberry frosting recipe. Mmmmmm... One of the notes says it should be creamy like ice cream. Now, strawberry isn't my favorite ice cream flavor, but man is this frosting good! I added a little more milk to make it decorating-capable. And little pink ruffles for the baby girl? So sweet!
The cake, as a whole, tasted good, but I was a little underwhelmed. I'll have to make it again. Soon. With improvements. :)
Strawberry Lemon Mousse
adapted from Taste of Home
Ingredients:
~16 oz. frozen strawberries, thawed
1/3 cup Splenda, rounded
1 oz. package sugar-free instant vanilla pudding mix
~1 lemon, juiced and zested
1 tub (8 oz.) reduced-fat frozen whipped topping, thawed
Directions:
Using a food processor, combine strawberries and Splenda until smooth.
Strain out the seeds. Toss 'em, unless you can figure out a brilliant use for them. Put the {somewhat seedless} strawberry mixture back into the food processor.
Add pudding mix and process until smooth. Add lemon juice and zest. Pulse to combine. Taste. Add more lemon if you like. Try to remember that you still have to add the whipped topping before you eat the whole thing.
Pour mixture into a large bowl. Fold in thawed whipped topping. Taste. Wash your spoon before it's too late. You will honestly want to eat the whole large bowl of strawberry lemon mousse. Just know that you have been warned.
Note 1: It takes the longest to strain out the strawberry seeds. Pouring a little at a time, I helped the process by running a spoon around the mesh strainer to force the mixture out a little more quickly. Just get as many seeds out as you can -- it'll be fine if some get through.
Note 2: I added the juice of a whole lemon and most of its zest. It doesn't really matter when you add it, as long as it's before the whipped topping. And I was going kind of crazy, so I'm pretty sure I added some lemon extract as well. I wasn't tasting the lemon, and I wasn't thinking about the flavor enhancing as it chilled. Either way, the extract didn't hurt it, but you could probably do without. :)
The original recipe serves the mousse as is - making 8 servings. I love it as a cake filling. This makes plenty for about 1" of filling in a 6" round cake {Perfect to have your own bowl while you chill your cake}. Next time, I may make more cake layers to use more of the mousse.
**FOR THE CAKE**
After I spread the mousse onto my bottom cake layer, I carefully put on the top layer. At this point, you may want to freeze the cake for about 30 minutes, before applying your crumb coat. This is to prevent the mousse from smushing out as you put the first layer of frosting on. Nothing bad will happen, it will just make things a bit easier.
For the ruffles, I used a Wilton leaf-shaped tip (#102 or #104 depending on the ruffle size you prefer).
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