Mommy's Cake (probably my new favorite)

For Mother's Day, I made my mom a list of about 5-6 desserts (including the oh-so-famous tofu chocolate pie, the pink lemonade tartlets and peach melba cake from My Sweet Vegan, and Papa Tofu's Strawberry Pie, along with others) and let her choose which one she would like for her special day. Well, after much deliberation (she said that they all sound wonderful and hopes that I make all of them very soon, and of course I will!) my mom chose a- drum roll, please-.............strawberry lemon cake!!


For the cake itself, I made a double batch of the lemon variation of the basic golden cupcakes recipe in VCTOTW and baked them in 9'' round pans for about 30 minutes. I leveled off the layers and cut them in half very carefully (this was my first time trying this!). I had made the strawberry filling the night before using this recipe to let it chill properly and it was the perfect consistency! I was terrified it may be too runny and ooze out the sides- but no problem here.

Before assembling the cake I whipped up a double batch of the fluffy vegan buttercream recipe from VCTOTW, set about 1/4 of it to the side for later, and threw in some yellow food coloring, lemon extract and lemon zest into the remaining frosting. I filled the layers with the strawberry filling and topped it all off with buttercream (I did a crumb coat to be safe) . I mixed the remaining strawberry mix and some red food coloring into the reserved frosting and piped it on top and finished it off with some fresh strawberries. As you can see, the strawberry frosting was a little too loose to pipe my piping needs some work, but I was pleased with it! My mom thought it looked gorgeous from the outside, but I think it was even more beautiful on the inside:

Since we went out for sushi for dinner that night (my dad's idea so my mom would not need to cook, but I know that he just loves his sushi- hehe) with my aunt and cousins who live close to the particular restaurant we went to, I just brought the cake along with us and we drove back to my aunt's house to eat it. I'd say it was a hit! There weren't many of us and over half the cake was eaten! My family and I can't get over how perfectly the filling and cake work. My dad was so silly in how he was analyzing my cake. According to him, "the strawberries don't overpower the lemon and there is not too much frosting....nice...." Haha- I think he's got it right!