An old classic made fresh in this vibrant buttercream swirl cake.

This strawberries and cream cake is what dreams are made of. Seriously! And yet it almost didn’t happen at all. I’ve been making a lot of new recipes lately, and I told myself that it was time to just make a decorating video. That’s all. Nothing fancy on the inside, just piping piping piping! But of course I had to bake something to pipe onto. So I thought I’d test out and old classic flavour, just to see what I could come up with to pair with this buttercream swirl cake idea.

Well, I stared at my usual recipe for layer cakes, my staple reliable recipe, and I just wasn’t feeling it. I wanted something fluffier. Still strong enough to hold up under all the frosting, but a style of cake that didn’t make you feel weighed down. Somewhere right in the middle is exactly where this cake ended up. I added baking soda, along with buttermilk. I say buttermilk, but in truth I just made sour milk by adding vinegar to low fat milk and waiting 5 minutes for it to curdle. Who has the money to constantly buy buttermilk? Especially at the moment because I’ve been buying the small farmer kind of milk instead of the big brands. Whilst I’m not likely to go vegan anytime soon, I do think small farms who care for their cows should get our support, and not those that use and abuse their cattle for maximum profits. I know it’s another 50% more expensive, but it helps out locals and cows at the same time, and it makes me feel a little better about the whole thing. 

I also took out some sugar and the sour cream, and added strawberry jam instead. I love the idea of making a cake with just fresh berries, but at the end of the day strawberries and cream is kind of a sugary sweet over exaggerated version of strawberry flavour, so I put in strawberry oil and food colour too. This is my 11 year olds favourite candy, so I had to make sure it was truly reminiscent of it. As for the buttercream, I chose not the do whipping cream, because again, it’s not quite right for this flavour, and I knew I needed to pipe with it as well. So I added some double cream to my buttercream, and also a dash of milk because it’s winter here, and without it I’d have a hard lump of frosting that’s good for nothing. If you have hot hands though, or it’s summer, try to add the colours first, and see if you need the milk at all. 

As soon as the cake was stacked I knew I had to write down the recipe and share it with you. It’s such a lovely cake, and it only takes 25 minutes to bake. How good is that? As for the piping on this buttercream swirl cake,  I’ve been wanting to show the differences between some of the more traditional large piping tips, so every colour on this cake is a different Wilton tip. The light pink is a 2D closed star tip, the dark pink a 4B open tip, the teal is a 366 leaf tip, the cream a 1A and the pretty peach is the most common open star tip, a 1M. I love how each one of them is slightly different, yet they all blend so well together. I added freeze dried strawberries at the last minute, and I’m so glad I did. They really helped to tone down the brightness of the cake just enough so that it looks super sweet. Check out the recipe and the video below for a complete how to.

KEEP SCROLLING TO SEE HOW TO MAKE THIS GORGEOUS BUTTERCREAM SWIRL CAKE.

 

Materials

• Americolor Teal and Blush food colours
• Sugarflair Pink and Ruby food colours
• Wilton Creamy Peach food colour
• Piping tips – #2B – pink, #4B – ruby, #1M – peach, #1A – natural with blush,  #366 – teal
• 4 Piping bags
• Angled spatula
• Cake scraper
• Buttercream – 300g pink, 250g ruby, 200g peach, 125g cream and 150g teal
• Freeze dried strawberries