Ice Cream Theme Cake with Strawberry Filling

Hello, all!

I've been on a bit of a hiatus. I had outpatient surgery two weeks ago, and I'm just now getting back into the groove of things. All is well, though!

This past weekend, I made an ice cream- themed cake for an adorable little three-year-old. It started with baking four 6" layers of good old-fashioned Funfetti cake. Then, I went to one of my local cake supply shops for some shortcut strawberry filling-- and there wasn't any! *gasp!* I regrouped (aka got on Pinterest) and found a simple strawberry filling recipe from Food.com (thank you, Danielle Michalski!)

One thing I changed was to mash the strawberries with a potato masher. You can definitely leave it more chunky, but I wanted it to not be as overwhelming in a 6" cake.

It worked great! The consistency was perfect for stability and it tasted much more authentic than the strawberry filling sleeves at the cake supply store. And it was much more economical! I think I am forever converted.

To construct the extra tall cake layers, I treated it as a stacked cake. I placed four dowel rods into the bottom two layers (that were filled with the strawberry filling), and placed a 6" board on top of that. then I added the other two filled layers of cake. After a good crumb coat, and a long chill session in the freezer, it was ready for the final coat of buttercream and some pastel sprinkles!

Add some candy coating for the "drip effect," an actual scoop of chilled pink buttercream, a sugar cone, and voila! An ice cream cone cake fit for a dessert themed birthday party!

This upcoming weekend, I have a beach-themed birthday cake and my godson's first birthday party! Octopus pirates, here I come!