Strawberry and vanilla ruffles for a girly birthday

It was my friend A's birthday again.  I mean really, who apart from me has birthdays every year?  It's just greedy really.  What's that?  Everyone has birthdays every year?  Not just me?  No fair!

Anyway, for her birthday this year we happened to be going to visit on the actual day and I had wanted to try out buttercream ruffle icing for a while, so I figured I'd combine the two.  Oh, and a strawberry cake.  So three things in fact.  Sad to say that some things worked out better than others that day...

So, a great thing happened whilst I was making the strawberry cake - I successfully made meringue!!  This is a red letter item indeed, as the only time I had tried before to make meringue I had wasted 8 egg whites and quite a bit of time and frustration on the project.  And not succeeded.  Hence the photo of the pink meringue mix, I was happy!

I used tinned strawberries well-drained, but as the end result proved, perhaps not well enough drained - the cake was edible but very moist.  The recipe doesn't suggest to use them, and in fact when I managed to chat with the legend herself, Miss Edna de la Cruz, she had never heard of tinned strawberries and showed me a photo of the cake when cut.  Suffice it to say, I heartily recommend that you don't use tinned strawberries when you make this cake.  Ever.

On the plus side, the YouTube video I've linked to above for the buttercream ruffles worked a treat and I got them done, almost without mishap.

Only I misjudged exactly quite how much icing I would need for this technique, and had to make up more - twice.  So the top layer is flat because by that stage I wasn't in the mood for making up yet more icing.  Sorry A!

I think I rescued the cake though, don't you?

And as it was a sunny day, I thought to take my spring flowers cake outdoors for some alfresco shooting

Then, when we got to A's house after school that day, she wanted a photo too because she was so pleased with her birthday surprise.  Thanks sweetie, so glad you liked it!