On my quest to find a from-scratch recipe, I stumbled across a Paula Deen recipe. Now, I looove her accent, her charm, and her show, but for health's sake, I avoid her dishes like the plague! I decided a birthday cake could be the exception to the rule, and after reading the reviews, decided to go with her strawberry cake. And yes, I realize it isn't totally from-scratch since it uses a box of cake mix, but there was enough other ingredients to doctor it up to make me feel like I put an effort into the cake.

This cake was super sweet, super strawberry-y, and super good! The puree used in the batter makes the cake very moist and delicious, and I allowed the puree to have a few small chunks just as a little bonus. A lot of the reviews I read said that the cream cheese icing was way too sweet (it calls for 7 cups of powdered sugar!!). I heeded the advice of some of the posters and added sugar 1/2 cup at a time, and I think I ended up using a smidge over 3 cups, and it still ended up very sweet. Also, there was no strawberry extract in my commissary (surprise, right?) so I substituted with vanilla extract. It wasn't missed, so go with the vanilla if you can't find the strawberry. The icing turns out somewhat "runny" and I had to keep the cake refrigerated to keep the icing from oozing off (can you tell from the last picture?). Also, I ended up only using half of the icing, so you can probably halve the frosting recipe. Over all, my kids oooh'd and aaah'd over how good it was, and so did I. I may not be good at making pretty cakes, but I made a pretty good cake, if I do say so myself!