Box Cake Transformations: Strawberry Ombre Cake

This weekend I was going to a baby shower and since I love transforming box cake into something amazing I decided to make a strawberry Ombre cake for the party! Like most things I bake I try to keep it simple, cause I'm lazy as hell in the kitchen. So if your like me keep reading cause I'm going to break down this pretty and PINK ombre cake, perfect for a baby shower, bridal shower, hell its good for a Sunday night dessert! A forewarning, I am new to this recipe blogging and most of this post is ramblings of the trials and tribulations of an armature baker... so there's your heads up!

Necessary materials 

Cake

• 2 boxes of white cake, cause I ain’t got time to make it myself 
• 2-4 8inch round cake pans
• hand mixer  
• parchment paper 
• A big ass box of strawberries

Betty Crocker Vanilla butter cream

• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla ( next time I might only use 1 teaspoon instead, it was a tad too strong) 
• 1 to 2 tablespoons milk

Strawberry buttercream

•  3+ cups confectioners sugar ( depending on how much strawberry you use you may need to add more sugar to thicken it up)
• 1/3 cup of butter or margarine, softened
• About 5 medium to small Muddled strawberries 
•  1 tablespoon of milk

I'm a Betty Crocker girl when it comes to cake, but whatever box brand you prefer will do!

I used rose pink, but you could also use red or any pink you have if you want to go the Ombre route!

How the hell to make it
First start with the cake, mix the cake as directed on the box, I don't want to waste typing directions that are already available to you. I made 2 boxes of cake for 4 layers. If you use 8 inch round pans like I did each box has about 4 cups of cake, this is important when making the different colored layers.

Being unprofessional, maybe amateur is a better term, I only had two cake pans, so making the 4 layers took a little longer than expected. Since I made the cakes the day before, so they could cool, it wasn't as big of a time issue as I would have been if I was making everything the day of. After mixing the batter I pour 2 cups of plain white cake into my first pan, then I added 2 more drops of food coloring it each layer (2, 4, 6). Since I had two colors of pink,  I did add a drop of deep pink to my darkest layer so it looked a little darker. When your done mixing your food coloring pour the batter in the pan and then just following the cooking instructions on your box. The suggested cook time was 29 minutes, but I checked mine at 25 and they were done. Ovens are funny!

While the cakes are cooking this is time to make your butter cream and slice your strawberries. This is the most baking I actually did. For the strawberries I tired to be as diligent as possible when cutting them evenly, but after the 5th strawberry I got a little impatient. I probably cut up to 10 strawberries and made fairly thin slices,  slicing each berry into about fifths. I would suggest cutting them a little thicker, in to thirds depending on the size so they are more visible in between the layers.

As for the frosting it's pretty easy to make, as per usual got impatient and made my strawberry a little runny (you need more sugar depending on how much muddled strawberry you used to thicken up the frosting). If you don't have time to make your own frosting, just use store bought there is no shame in that game! Basically, all you do is take all your ingredients, put them in a bowl and mix them together. You may need to add a little more milk as you go, just eye ball it. If it starts to get runny add more sugar. A word to the wise, this butter cream is very sweet so a little goes a long way when icing the cakes! ALSO.. make sure the butter it room temperature! I made that mistake and tried to microwave it to soften it and lets just say it tasted good, but wasn't pretty!

Once the cakes are done cooling (give them at least 30 minutes to an hour in the fridge) and your frosting is all made, it's time to start layering. Before you start layering don't forget to level the cakes. I do not have all the fancy cake tools SO I just used a sharp cutting knife and slowly cut along the edge until I could take my icing spatula and remove the top. Trust me you don't need all the tools to make it work! 

Starting darkest to lightest layers I first evenly spread, my runny, strawberry frosting over each layer. Then I covered the frosting with the sliced strawberries, I tried to fill as much surface area as possible with the strawberries, then repeat! For the top layer I only covered the cake with the frosting. Since I was making this over two days I put it in the fridge over night to chill. If your not prepping it the night before then, let it cool for about 30 minutes then start your outer frosting layer! I had a little strawberry left over so I mixed it in with the plain vanilla, giving it a nice color and a slight strawberry flavor! I topped the cake with the extra sliced strawberries and a few white chocolate dipped strawberries I had made from the extras. Have fun with the decoration part, throw on some sprinkles or even just the extra strawberries for some flare or leave it plain cause once you cut the cake everyone will be in awe of how pretty the ombre is they won't care about the outside! After icing my cakes I like to refrigerate them, but do what works for you!

Little booboo, but the icing covered it so all good!! I know some people like to cut the crispy edges, but I don't have time or the patience for that and it still looked good once it was all frosted!

This was the final frosting, it had a nice pink hue and the little strawberry speckles were a nice touch!

Final product!

I was an idiot and didn't take a picture of the cut cake, but know it looked amazing :)

Comment below if you like what your reading and want to see more similar posts or let me know things you'd like me to hear me review, or really, rant about! Check out my instagram izzababy9 as well!