If you’d like to recreate this one, here’s what I did:

1. Baked my favorite Strawberry, Vanilla, and Chocolate cake recipes for 9″round pans. You can layer any way you like, but I chose to torte my chocolate and strawberry 9″cakes into 2 each, and just used one vanilla. Each of the 5 layers are about 1? high.

2. Using a thin 9″round cake board, I placed the first layer down, filled with jam,  and repeated until the cake was stacked. I then covered the whole cake in airtight container and placed in fridge for about an hour.

3. I made a batch of Strawberry Party Frosting, tinted it Strawberry pink, using a few drops of AmeriColor Electric Pink (I tend to use this brighter version of pink gel often, because with buttercream being a yellow tinge, it seems to cut right through the yellow, making the result a nice bright pink.). Once the cake was chilled, I frosted it, added my favourite white sprinkles, and then piped a classic birthday cake star tip border and shell border on the bottom, using a Wilton Open Star Tip #22 for both.

 I’ve included a recipe for Strawberry Cake and Strawberry Frosting, since it’s seemingly hard to find a good one. I really like this one that I found online last year and modified slightly. Keep in mind that with all of the white sugar in this Strawberry Cake recipe, the crust of the cake gets a bit more golden brown than the other flavours. This recipe makes two 9? rounds, but I made cupcakes with the extra batter. You could divide the recipe in half.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp. plus 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small
    pieces
• 2 to 3 Tbs. ice water
• 1 2/3 cups pumpkin puree (see related tip
   at left)
• 2 Tbs. orange marmalade
• 3 Tbs. molasses
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Whipped cream for serving

Directions:

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and press together to form a 5-inch disk. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat an oven to 425°F.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a 12-inch round about 1/8 inch thick. Transfer the dough to a 9-inch pie dish and fit the dough into the dish. Trim the edges, leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold under the excess dough and, using your thumb, decoratively flute the edges. Refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes.

Line the pie shell with aluminum foil or parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes. Transfer the pie shell to a wire rack and let cool.

In a large bowl, stir together the pumpkin, marmalade, molasses, the 1 cup sugar, the cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and the remaining 1/2 tsp. salt. Add the eggs and cream and stir until smooth. Pour the filling into the pie shell and smooth the top.

Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F and bake until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer the pie to a wire rack and let cool. Top each slice with a dollop of whipped cream.

Ingredients:

• 3 sticks butter
• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 5 eggs
• 3 cups sifted cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon Madagascar vanilla extract

Cake bites is made out of cake scraps (I used chocolate cake) and is mixed with either buttercream, cream cheese frosting or chocolate ganache until it looks likes a sticky “dough” that you can mould. You can add candy flavoring.

Roll the “dough” into small bite sizes and chill them in the refrigerator for about 1 hour. Then decorate them as you desire with melted chocolate, poured fondant or sprinkles. If you are planning to roll the cake bites in sugar sprinkles, then do it the moment that you have rolled the cake bites while they are still soft and sticky. Otherwise it can be hard for the sugar sprinkles to attach the cake bite.

I decorated some of my cake bites with sprinkles and covered the rest with poured fondant and decorated them with green vines and some small pink royal icing flowers. Placed in paper cups these small cake bites would be a perfect treat for a tea party.

Ingredients

• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 2 ounces red food coloring
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vinegar

Directions