Leila requested two things for her birthday yesterday. Fish tacos and pink strawberry cake. Fish tacos were the easy part. I have made them countless times and always use this recipe for marinating the fish. The trickier part was the strawberry cake. As you know, I’m not much of a baker. Thankfully, I was able to use the coconut cake recipe that I made for Jeff’s birthday and tweak it a bit to come up with a strawberry vanilla cake for Leila. The result was a subtly sweet cake with fresh strawberries on top. Everyone liked it including the birthday girl who kept stealing tastes of the frosting.
Gluten Free Strawberry Vanilla Cake
Ingredients
- For the cake:
- 1 package Bob's Red Mill GF Vanilla Cake Mix
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup water at room temperature
- 4 strawberries mashed
- For the frosting:
- 3 large egg whites
- 1 cup organic sugar
- 3 Tbsp. cold water
- 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 8 strawberries divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Generously grease two 9-inch cake pans. Line bottom with parchment paper, then grease again.
- Prepare cake as directed. Add mashed strawberries after mixing and before pouring into pans.
- Divide batter evenly between two pans, smooth the top with a spatula.
- Place pans 3 inches apart on middle rack of oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool cakes in pans on wire rack for 15 minutes. Run sharp knife around edges to loosen cakes, then invert onto separate plates to cool completely before frosting.
- For frosting:
- In a double boiler over simmering water, beat egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and cold water with a portable mixer on medium-high speed until soft peaks form, about 7 minutes. Stir in 5 mashed strawberries.
- Place 1 cake layer on a serving plate, topside down, and spread with 1 cup of the frosting. Top with the other cake layer, topside up. Spread the sides and then the top of the cake with the frosting.
- Arrange remaining strawberries, cut in half, on top.
- Serve within an hour or refrigerate.
Beautiful photos of your family – happy belated to Leila!
Thank you Claire!!
Beautiful photos – love the plate of veggies. We usually serve green cabbage with our fish tacos, but love that purple! Yummy birthday requests…gotta love those kids of dietitians!
Thanks Leah. I thought Leila would like the purple cabbage since it’s one of her favorite colors 🙂
So glad I found your site! Your kids are beautiful, and the food looks incredibly healthy and yummy! As someone studying to be a registered dietitian you (and your children) are true inspirations!
Amy that is so sweet, thank you! Where are you studying?
Your fish tacos look soyummy. Cake looks great, too. I haven’t tried it with a Bob’s mix, but I love The Cake Doctor Bakes Gluten Free. You can make pretty much any cake you can dream up with her book and a white gf cake mix.
Great suggestion Tiffany! I used to have the original cake mix doctor book. I didn’t know there was a gluten-free one!
[…] and I may have had another piece for breakfast this morning. You can find the recipe for the cake here, and I’ll be posting the fish taco recipe next […]