Strawberry Vanilla Cake with Roses made out of Buttercream

For the cake layers I recommend weighing all ingredients first and setting everything up before starting as you can't stop in between. Having a kitchen machine is helpful, but it is also doable if you only have a handmixer.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line the bottom of two 18cm springforms with parchment paper. Weigh flour and baking powder into a bowl, set aside. Place butter and milk into a pot. Beat the eggs with the vanilla extract while measuring the sugar. Once foaming, add the sugar and beat on high until tripled in volume, almost white in color and much thicker in consistency. It took me about 5 minutes. Meanwhile gently heat the butter and milk mix. Once the butter has melted, stir in vanilla extract and oil.

Once your egg mixture is done, add the flour mix in two batches, only beat on low until you see no flour pockets, stop immediately. Take about two tablespoons of this mix and stir into the hot butter and milk mix. Then pour this back into the flour mix while beating on low. The batter will be thin, this is normal. Stop beating right after everything is combined. Pour into prepared springforms and bake for about 30-35 minutes (I needed 33 minutes). An inserted toothpick should come out clean. Let cool and release from cake pans.

For the strawberry filling bring the strawberries and sugar to a boil in a pot, stir occasionally and let simmer for a few minutes until the strawberries get soft. Puree strawberries and place back on heat. Meanwhile stir in some water into the cornstarch until no lumps remain, then add to the strawberry mix. While stirring, let come to another boil, reduce heat and let thicken for about a minute. Set aside.

Beat the butter for a few minutes until fluffy, then slowly add the cooled off strawberries by the spoonful. Beat in cream cheese last. If the filling is soupy, you didn't wait long enough for the strawberry filling to cool off, take to the fridge for the butter to harden a bit in that instance.

Cut the cake layers in half so that you have four cake layers total. Spread one third of the strawberry filling on the first cake layer, then place the second on top. Repeat with second and third layer. Place the fourth cake layer upside down on top so that you have a nice and even finish. Spread any strawberry filling seeping out on the sides of the cake. Let cool for at least half an hour. My cake was a bit loopsided so I placed it inside a cake ring before chilling for it to be even and straight.

For the buttercream whisk together the milk with the icing sugar in a small bowl until you see now lumps. Cut the cold butter into cubes and beat them briefly in a large bowl with a machine. Once you start adding the milk mix slowly, be sure to cover your bowl with a large and thick towel as otherwise you will have milk splattered all over. Only add milk little by little. It took me about 5 minutes before I could take off the towel and another 10 before the cream was ready to be used. You will know that the cream is ready if you can't find any liquid at the bottom of the bowl and the buttercream has a glossy and smooth consistency. If after 15-20min you still feel it looks curdled, warm up a small part of the butter, put it back in and continue beating. If you are in a warm place, it may take less time to come together. You can add a very small amount of purple food coloring to take out a bit of the yellow color. Your buttercream is now ready to use.

Frost the entire cake thinnly with the buttercream, chill cake. Color remaining buttercream in the colors you want to make the flowers in. I only used pink and green. Create roses (check out this video for details) or other flowers and leaves with the palette knife (you can see an entire blog post about the details here). Glue the roses and leaves onto the cake with some additional buttercream. Obviously you can omit the flowers and go for a completely different kind of decoration, see recipes below for other ideas. The cake will keep for a few days if chilled and also freezes beautifully.