Strawberry Cake

I recently posted about a STRAWBERRY CAKE made from my mother's recipe box that created quite a flurry of DM's, messages, emails and even phone calls asking for the recipe. This dessert is pink, ultra sweet and full of smiles with every bite, one that would brighten any Valentine's Day table. We made this cake for the third time since December this past weekend for a Teen Tea my girl conjured up. Normally, the scones are central but seemed like a place-holder until we cut in to the cake looming on the sideboard. After the event, the glass cover was places on top and I have noticed that over the days, the cake has been slivered-away, one tiny bit at a time. This act is mom-approved and an indulgent way to enjoy our favorite cake. Happy memories being created with every bake of this old-fashioned cake from the 70's.   

Below is the post from January about this honored cake with the recipe following with a MUST-READ review by Jack Rivers Bonney. Make the cake with me on my YouTube Channel or Instagram TV with ny new January Hammock branc.

January, 26th

This year I thought if I could find the recipe from my childhood cake, I’d make it for Eva’s 18th in December. I opened my mother’s recipe box to find the recipe in her backward-slant cursive handwriting staring at me. I plucked it from the box with a tear in my eye.

I think my made-from-scratch lifestyle had me looking away from my childhood favorite. Do the ingredients sound familiar: Jell-O, box cakes mix, and frozen strawberries? Why were my children denied?

Making the cake flooded me with memories of seeing the cake on the sideboard, waiting for our family dinner, and thinking that my mother was a goddess .As soon as I announced to my college fiends I was making it, the group chat was a flurry remembering how my mom drove 2,5 hours each way, on my first birthday away from home to bring me the cake in a picnic basket and how I hoarded the cake in the mini-fridge. I also remembered that I have not had the cake since that freshman year in college. So I made it for Eva’s 18th birthday, the smell and taste flooded my memories even deeper. Eva felt similarly about it and was not happy her brother took more than his fair share of the cake.

Dear college friend Sydney made one for their Christmas table. This is the message I got from her son;

"Hello Jan, this is Jack Bonney. I need you to know that I hated your cake. I hate it with a passion that I’ve never hated anything with, because anything I eat from this point forward will taste like cardboard in comparison. This cake has turned me feral, and I have lost the self control to stop eating it. I keep coming back for more, lying to myself with each bite that this will be the last. Even when the cake is gone, I will continue to long for it. I have tasted the forbidden fruit and now nothing else will do. I am ruined." - UPDATE: Sydney made ANOTHER cake the same weekend I did...it's clearly a trend...

Recipe

First my mother Mildred's Card:

Now let's bake:

Prepared cake pans: buttered, flowered + parchment papered

Strawberry Cake

• 1 WHITE Cake Mix
• 1/2 Cup Neutral Oil (I use grapeseed)
• 4 Whole Eggs
• 1 Box (small) strawberry Jello-o disolved in 1/4 cup water
• Add 1/4 cup strawberry juice to mixture - to cool the mixture
• then add another 1/2 cup strawberry mixture to cool the Jello-Mixture
• Then add 1/2 bag of frozen (thawed and mashed)

Basically, you add one ingredient at a time to the mixture, mixing inbetween.

Pour evenly in to pans

Bake in preheated oven at 350 for about 40 minutes. Let cake cool completely

Strawberry Icing

Mom said a box of powdered sugar. This varies for my icing. If it's too runny, I have to keep adding powdered sugar, so best to have a BIG bag on hand.

other 1/2 of bag of strawberries, 1 stick of butter. Mix in blender. Let it set a little. Pour over cake after completely cool. If you don't want a mess, then pour on a wrack over a cookie sheet. We like the runny icing on the cake stand, so you will see we just go for it and pour and enjoy the drips.

Please tag #januaryhammock + @millielottietotes if you make this cake. Each time I hear about someone else enjoying this treat, my heart sings.