Snowfall and Strawberry Cake

On Sunday, March 1, we awoke to snow! We don't get much snow here in the Memphis area, and when we do, there usually isn't much of it, so this was special. It was pretty deep in my back yard...at least 6" (I know, but that is DEEP for us!).



The BAD part of getting a nice wet snow is what it does to the trees...like this Leyland Cypress that split and fell over the pool. This tree had a double trunk, and it broke at the ground...it didn't uproot. We'll have some fun with chainsaws this weekend! Goody. We're hoping it didn't puncture the pool cover.



I love how the fences look with snow piled on the rails!

The poolside umbrella and chairs don't look quite so inviting like this, though!

All in all, it was a good weekend to stay inside!

So I did.

I cleaned my house. Ack! I know...


But this month, it was my turn to host Bunko.

I am always struck with an unreasonable panic when it is my turn to be hostess.
This means I have to FIX FOOD! I am a reluctant cook. Not a terrible cook by any means, but not a fabulous one either.
And there are so many good cooks in this group, so I always feel 'pressure' to find something tasty and interesting to serve. Yikes!

For some reason, I have been thinking about strawberry cake recently...probably because I started a diet a few weeks ago and have been limiting processed carbs! So I decided to look for a recipe for strawberry cake. I had in mind what it should taste like...and I felt like the icing should be a cream cheese icing. So I Googled strawberry cake recipes and began reading. When I found this one, I knew it was 'the one'.

I made the cake as directed, hoping my poor old oven didn't burn it too badly or make it rise and fall and generally become misshapened, as so often happens. Let's just say I am known for making ugly cakes! But this one didn't do too badly at all. It did rise higher than the sides of the cake pans, but settled back down to about level.

Then I made the icing. Oh dear. my poor old mixer was struggling to mix all that sugar in, so I figured I *must* need to add more pureed strawberries to thin it out some. WEll, long story shorter...my icing was a bit loose.

I cut strips of waxed paper and insert them around the perimeter of the cake, to progtect the plate from the inevitable mess I will make trying to ice the sides of the cake.

After I placed the top layer onto the bottom one, I realized that the sides of the pans I had used must not be perfectly vertical, because the cake layers didn't match up in circumference! The top of each layer seemed larger than its bottom. But once I plopped that top layer onto the icing covering the bottom layer, it was NOT coming off!

I took a sharp knife and trimmed the top layer, so it would better match up with the bottom layer. I am now wondering where these particular cake pans came from...and where are the pans I usually use? Hmmmm.

The finished cake was not beautiful, but was definitely NOT my ugliest. I smeared that icing up those sides umpteen times, trying to get it to stop running back down to the bottom (note to self: don't use more strawberry puree than the recipe calls for!). This cake needs to be refridgerated, and since my fridge was full, I stuck it outside on the back porch until serving time. Snow is good for a few things, even in the South!

The cake was a hit at the party.
And I have just enough left over to ruin my diet for another few days!