Baking From Scratch. Sort Of.

When it comes to the kitchen, I'm what you might call an "easy" chef. WHOA! Get your mind out of the gutter, not that kind of easy!  I mean, I don't like things to get too complicated.  I like minimal directions, ingredients that already exist in my cupboards and timely outcomes.  SO, it's safe to assume that when it comes to baking, I'm generally a cake out of a box kind of girl.  Yellow, vanilla, chocolate, funfetti...I'll try all of them, and in lots of different forms.  But, I don't usually venture into "from scratch" territory.  It goes back to a carrot cake I made (tried to make) years ago that may have wound up with several cups of salt instead of sugar... My point being, that I steer clear of those recipes that have a ton of particular measurements of a ton of specific ingredients, cuz it can get confusing fast.

That being said, I've been playing on Pinterest, looking for a light, Springy dessert to bring to Easter dinner at my boyfriend's sister's house, and I found this delicious looking Strawberry Cream Cake.  However, no box cakes involved here...it's from scratch.  And, it calls for things like whole milk, and parchment paper, and unsalted butter. I mean, do you keep that stuff in your kitchen?  Maybe you do, but I don't.  Still, it met my qualifications of having not too many steps and being not overly time consuming, so onward I went...with a few changes.  Turns out, with a little help from Google, you can substitute whole milk with other low-fat milks, like the 1% I had in my fridge.  But, I actually added a spoonful of vegetable oil to beef up the fat content (it's Easter dinner, not going for any low-cal dessert here).  As for the unsalted butter, turns out you can use regular butter or margarine, but maybe ease up on the amount of salt the recipe calls for.  And while the recipe may call for lining the pan with parchment paper, I actually had this sweet silicone pan, which I greased and floured, and figured I could peel off.  So my substitutions in place, I got to work...

Here's what it's supposed to look like:

Credit: Thanks Winona's and Martha Stewart!

And, here's how it looked going into the oven:

And, here's the final product:

 Not too shabby, if I do say so myself! I had no issues with skipping the parchment paper, the cake came right out. As for the other substitutions, I couldn't really cut into it before dinner... But, I will say the batter was pretty tasty, and the whipped topping was pretty easy to lick off my fingers, and who doesn't love strawberries??  It sure LOOKS like it will taste delicious all together, but I'll have to give you the final ruling after it gets dealt out at dinner. Fingers crossed!  And, Happy Easter!