Saturday, February 14, 2015

Strawberry Upside-Down Valentine's Day Cake

Today is Valentine's Day!  And I wanted to try making something new.  Something suitable for Valentine's Day.  But I didn't know what it would be...

At the Farmers' Market, I bought a basket of strawberries.  (The great thing about living in coastal California, is that we have Farmers Markets – with fresh strawberries – all year round).  But I still didn't know what to do with them.   At Trader Joe's I picked up a pint of heavy cream.  That could surely be combined with strawberries in some way, but I was still aimless.

When we got home, I turned to Chef Google.  Searching for "valentine's day cake recipes" turned up this list which brought me to this recipe for Strawberry Upside-Down Cake.  But this was one of these semi-homemade kind of deals with marshmallows, jell-o mix, and boxed cake.  That just wouldn't do!  But it gave me the idea of where to start.

I could combine a simple strawberry pie filling recipe (strawberries + tapioca: done) with the All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake from the indispensable Cake Bible, and a whipped cream frosting (with red food coloring to make it pink for Valentine's Day!).  Becky says this "might be the best cake [I've] ever made." And here it is!