Hello sweet world, I’m Jordana. I’m a sprightly seventeen and have a fabulous affection for dessert.
Today is a lovely day, it’s Valentine’s Day! A day to celebrate love, the only thing more important than a KitchenAid mixer. The one day of the year it’s acceptable to cover everything in roses and chocolate and kisses and pink and get away with it, oh what a beautiful thing!
My valentine’s day this year was a pinkie’s up, no elbows on the table, please pass the scones style tea party with some of my nearest and dearest friends, and it was out of this world delicious.
There was tea. Lots of tea. Lots of tea on the tablecloth.
There were buttermilk scones, which were really buttermilk biscuits cut in triangles, shhhh.
These truffles happened. My first truffle making experience ever! By the time they were finished I looked like a little boy playing in the mud.
Obviously, there were sugar cookies.
Let me tell you something about royal icing– it’s worth it. It’s without a doubt more annoying than a bug bite on the bottom of your foot in knee-high boots, and it doesn’t even taste all that amazing, but the Wow Factor is unbeatable.
Here’s what our out-of-an-unrealistic-movie-or-american-girl-craft-book table looked like ! :
Above all, this cake happened.
Strawberries + Rosé Champagne + a lot of butter = Great success. Make this cake! It’s dense and almost gooey from the moisture of the strawberries, super sturdy and easy to assemble, and the frosting is fluffy and bubbly and sweet with just enough tang from the champagne to make you giggle. It’s a good thing, this cake.
Strawberries & Champagne Cake
Adapted from Martha Stewart & Sprinkle Bakes
For the cake: (I made a 1 1/2 batch of the original recipe, so the measurements are a little funky.)
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 1/4 cup self-rising flour
1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 + slightly over 2/3 cup sugar
6 large eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
1 3/4 cup + 2 tbspn milk
15 ounces strawberries, hulled and cut into a small dice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 3 cake pans with nonstick spray, and line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper. Spray those too, just to be safe.
In a medium bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, and salt. Set this aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of bowl as needed. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and then beat in vanilla. With the mixer on low, add in some of the flour, then some milk, then more flour, the rest of the milk, and the rest of the flour. Beat just until combined, and then fold in the strawberries. Resist eating the batter with a spoon.
Divide the batter evenly among the cake pans somewhere between 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full, this batter doesn’t puff up all that much. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, and the tops are just golden brown. Start checking them around 18 minutes. Transfer them, in the pans, to a wire rack to cool, and then to the fridge to chill out and firm up until frosting.
For the frosting:
2 cups + 2 tablespoons pink champagne (or any champagne or sparkling wine your heart desires)
4 sticks of butter, softened. I won’t tell if you won’t.
5 cups powdered sugar, sifted.
Place 2 cups of the champagne in a small saucepan and boil until it’s reduced to about 2 tablespoons. It should be a bit thicker and very strong to taste. Set it aside to cool.
In an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the butter and sugar until creamy, thick, fluffy and irresistible. Pour in 2 tablespoons of the reduced champagne + 2 tablespoons straight from the bottle. Beat until fluffy.
Enjoy your love day!
Jordana
oh my it’s beautiful! I want to make it for a bridal shower! And I made those cookies from annie’s eats as well 🙂
It would perfect for a bridal shower, what a cute idea! And those cookies are absolutely scrumptious, aren’t they!
Made this cake for my friends 22nd birthday, it was the biggest hit! Such an awesome recipe! Thanks!
Looks like you had the best party. So much sugar! I love your strawberry cake photo. Delish!
Thank you!!
Jordana, your photos are stunning! Great job. It woudl be great if you coudl share you truffles recipe too. I made some truffles this year for Valentine’s day too, but need to try something new for my next party.
Thank you so much! I believe I linked to a recipe for the truffles but I may be wrong, although they were very basic and I hope to try something more outrageous soon!
Jordana, What a lovely table everything looks so yummy. Your cake looks divine- I will definately be trying it this week and you little cookies look so perfect.
heyhey, flour-child.
I found your blog via “fastest growing blogs” on my wordpress dashboard.
I’m impressed by your pictures and your work. Andd the cake looks 100% delicious.
nice site. like it.
http://greenalgaeandgarlic.wordpress.com/
Thank you so much that means so much to me!!
These tasty looking treats made my mouth water. They look great! And I love love love the tea cup.
lovely cake!
Your table is beautiful! I love the royal icing on the cookies and that cake is almost too pretty to cut into.
I love your tea party set up! I’ve been looking for an excuse to have a tea party, but most of my friends where I live are male, so I don’t know how well that would blow over. 😛
I love the picture of the inside of the cake. It looks delicious. All of the treats on the table look yummy.
Welcome to the world of food blogging! You’re off to a good start ’cause it looks great 🙂
I made strawberry cupcakes for Valentines, but now looking at that champagne frosting makes me want to do them again so that I can try it out!
Looking forward to seeing more 🙂
Hi Jordana!
I have tried making strawberry champagne cake 3 times already with out much luck! I’ve been testing out the recipe to make for a Bridal Shower cake (as a few others seem to be doing as well) and I found that the frosting and cake had a weird taste within 2 days of making it and I figured it was from the champagne. I was wondering if you noticed this at all or if it was all eaten on the day you made it?? Congrats on starting the blog!
My frosting definitely held its taste for several days, maybe because the champagne is reduced down before being added in. This is my no-fail recipe, I promise you’ll love it! And thank you!!
As I was reading and looking at the pictures my mouth was drooling.
Wish were there to eat them all. Love Howie and Ceril
hello!
I have stumbled across your blog via http://bakingbites.com/. cute blog!
your strawberry champagne cake looks absolutely delicious. i love cake. i am definitely going to try this one!
Hi Jordana,
I am Sam Quinn’s mom…your Grandma give me this site to look at after I saw the pics posted on facebook. The pics are stunningly beautiful and if they taste as good as you dance, I can only imagine perfection. You are very, very talented! Good luck and I can’t wait to use one of your recipes 🙂
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This cake recipe is exactly what I’ve been looking for for my wedding cake! Thank you for posting it! I can’t wait to go home and try it out! One question that I have is should I use a sweeter champagne or a drier one. I want to have a white icing, so I won’t be using the rose champagne.
That is really up to your own preference. I of course would choose a sweeter one, since I’m a 17 year old girl, but I’m guessing that I drier one would pack more of a bunch. Congratulations, and I think that this could make an amazing wedding cake!
Have you experimented at all with using champagne in the cake itself vs the milk? I am wanting to try this recipe to add to my cake flavors that I offer customers but I would like to use a traditional buttercream with the cake instead of the champagne frosting. I use a special one for cake that I decorate with. If I can incorporate the two flavors in just the cake, I think that would kill two birds with one stone. Let me know if you’ve tried this. Thank you!
Hello there!
Thank you for sharing the recipe – especially the one for the frosting. I tried it today and it turned out amazingly delicious. I’m sure to bookmark you 🙂
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Yum! I love champagne cake, but I’ve never tried it with strawberries. I’ll have to add this to my list of things to try!
This is probably the best tasting icing I’ve ever eaten. I’m pretty sure it’s that inordinate about of butter 🙂
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