Don't let the title of this post fool you. No, this is not a French Fridays recipe, but a French recipe we are baking for Tuesdays with Dorie. And let's cut to the chase ... I LOVED this recipe!! I loved our French Friday's recipe for
quartre-quarts so much that I've
made it a few times and this week's cake recipe was very similar. WAY better than traditional/American shortcake!! I love the dense, vanilla-y cake with sweet, juicy berries.
Yesterday I was pooped ... no motivation ... tired. I keep getting to bed too late at night and things are busy and going at my house by 6am every morning. I was grumpy & tired and so were my children. By 4:00 in the afternoon, I was at my wit's end with sassy attitudes, disobedience, being told NO!, etc, etc, etc. I quickly decided it would be best if we all take a break from each other and rest a bit before Dad got home from work. The kids were all sent to their rooms ... Penguin read for a while and Peacock kept trying to sneak out of her room but she eventually fell asleep & slept almost FOUR hours! Turkey had a nap too and I must admit that I fell asleep next to him for about 30 minutes. After my quick nap, I came down and got busy with my strawberry cake and had some nice, quiet, relaxing time to myself. For whatever reason I was a bit worried about making this recipe, but once I got into it, it went very quickly.
I think my cake had enough height to make 3 layers, but when I was ready to assemble everything, the cake was just barely cool enough to cut and I didn't trust myself to make the 3 layers. I was thinking it might be fun to double the cake recipe and do 4 thicker layers sometime. Or use this cake in my English Trifle recipe instead of pound cake.
{working on the first layer}
I chose to not frost the sides of the cake because I liked seeing the insides and thought it was pretty. I also just dumped the remainder of the strawberries and the juices on top of my cake. I'm sure I wasn't supposed to do that....
It turned out fun & yummy & the extra juice made the frosting fall down the sides of the cake. I think I'm gonna go eat some leftovers now for my mid-morning snack. My children will be jealous. I might share.
We have two hosts this week who shared the recipe on their blog.
Sophia's Sweets
Think, Love, Sleep, Dine
#photoadayjune
