Triple Decker Strawberry Cake

When I started I said I was going to make these exactley as the recipe appears in the book - but I made two little changes to this one - the Triple-Decker Strawberry Cake - page 67.  As the name implies, the recipes calls for a three layer cake - but I have just two nice cake pans (and they are nice - I'll explain more later).  So, I decided to make it as two layers, then cut those two in half, resulting in a four layer cake.  That was change number 1.    Number 2 was in making a 1 and 1/2 recipe batch of the frosting to insure I had enough to spread across the extra layer.  The end result is a sweeter version with all that additional frosting. 

The biggest seal of approval I can give is that my hubby said "this is really good." This coming from a man who thinks if it aint got chocolate, it aint dessert.  But that isn't really a big surprise considering the extra frositng - his remark considering my selection of a bundt cake as my first cake was - why not a layer cake?  A layer cake having more frosting.

This is another super moist cake - the fresh strawberries gave it a wonderful taste - but the jello added a bit of an artificial taste as well.  Yes, I believe I could taste both the fresh strawberries and the artificial strawberry jello taste.  Perhpas what I was actually noticing was the fresh strawberries in the frosting.  The frosting was very good - though I personally prefer a lesser amount of frosting.  Hubby and I are polar opposites on this point - he thinks of the cake as being a side bar - something to hold the frosting for his consumption.  I often will eat the cake between the layers of frosting leaving most the frosting behind - so frosting has to be pretty special to catch my attention. 

I said I would say a word about my cake pans -- first, I have a small kitchen and there isn't much storage room, so I don't keep a very wide variety of pans.  Have you ever struggled with the layer cakes that dome up in the center so when you try to frost and stake them, they seem to wobble or look nothing like the cook book picture?  When I was growing up a neighbor decorated cakes as a living and she gave me a tip to handle this.  The issue is with the outer edges of the cake cooking too fast, not giving it time to rise, while the middle cooks at a more appropriate speed - the result is that doming affect.  She would tear towels into narrow strips - wet them and tie them on the outside of the pans.  This slowed the cooking of the edges and allowed the cake to cook more evenly.  I successfully used this technique for many years.  A couple of years ago I purchased two 9 inch Wilton round cake pans - they have a double wall design that acts in the same manner - the layers come out much more even.   So - there you are - two viable tips for nice level cake layers.....