Strawberry cheese...cake

I like to make dessert about once a week. It gives me the opportunity to let me inner dessert diva come out AND dessert is my favorite meal of the day :) So, I present to you my take on strawberry cheese...cake.

Normally, when I bake it's not really a well thought out and put together plan. I usually decide what to make at the last minute based on whatever craving I have plus some pinspiration. That in turn often leaves me scrambling at the last minute to really pull off something presentable. I'm known for making an cake and not putting any icing on it because I didn't have the energy or ingredients to make the icing. I know, I could always use the store bought icing but call me a icing snob if you will- I don't like store bought icing and never use it.

Source: food2please.com via The Mrs. on Pinterest

This week my main force behind dessert was pinspired. For whatever reason the link from Pinterest was broken and when I googled the source the search results only led back to Pinterest. So I could only go on the notes included with the pin:

                                      "This was on Dr. Oz… very cool! Cake Mix + Fat-Free Greek Yogurt
                                      180 calories per serving – never baking with eggs and oil again!
                                      *Pinners Note: THIS WORKS!! 1c chobani vanilla yogurt + 1 Betty
                                      Crocker cake mix + 1c water"

I wasn't about to go researching to see if it was really on Dr. Oz or not so I just went with it. I figured if it came out bad it would be a lesson learned. Although I have seen a conversion table for Greek yogurt to ingredients that are less healthy. So I figured the cake would minimally bake- how it will taste would be determined.

Source: chobani.com via The Mrs. on Pinterest

So, my trusty helper and I set out on this new baking project. Since there were only 3 ingredients to the cake I didn't even pull out my stand mixer. I love that thing but sometimes I hate cleaning it. I whipped up the batter by hand which I haven't done in years and I used my 'little' cake pans so that I would be sure that it would be gone after a few slices. Popped it in the oven and let it do it's thing. When I took it out it was very light and fluffy and I could tell it was moist! I tried a few crumbs and was quite pleased with the results.

Then came my dreaded icing issue. I have a few go to icing recipes that I like but some of those take some forward thinking like room temperature butter. Well not only was my butter not room temp- it was frozen solid. I keep tons of butter in my freezer so that I know I'll have some on hand for baking. It'd be nice to give myself advanced warning as to when I'll need it so that I can let it thaw ahead of time.


Here momma use this!

I ended up using a cream cheese filling recipe as icing. Hence strawberry cheese...cake. Clever, right? Okay- you can stop laughing. After the cake cooled and it was filled, frosted, and my helper put to bed I tasted it. And... it wasn't too bad! It was in fact very moist but also very dense. I prefer light and fluffy cake but hubby- he loves dense cake so this.....

 ... was a winner. And writing this post has made several things clear to me. I'm not a good dessert planner, I really want to finish the Wilton cake decorating course, and I'm a horrible food photographer.

And my sous chef... he'll get to taste test tomorrow :)

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