My daughter decided she wanted a strawberry cake filled with vanilla ice cream for her birthday and decorated with meringue cookies. A tall order but I am always up for a birthday cake challenge! The recipe for the meringue cookies is here: https://myegglessworld.com/2016/11/21/meringue-cookies/ I added food colouring before the final whipping to make them pink. You should make these the day before.

Strawberry Cake

Cream together butter, sugar and then add the oil and mix well:

• 1/4 cup softened butter
• 1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1 and 3/4 cups sugar

Then mix in:

• 1/2 cup plain unsweetened yogurt (equal to 2 eggs)
• 1 and 1/4 cups pureed strawberries
• 1 tsp vanilla

In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Alternate dry ingredients into the batter with the milk mixture:

• 1/2 cup milk mixed with 1 tsp vinegar

Bake at 350 degrees F in 2 parchment-lined 9 inch cake pans for 30 -35 minutes. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool.

Once cool, take the bottom layer of cake, use slightly soft 1 and 1/2 litres of vanilla ice cream sliced or scooped and smooth it out to cover the bottom layer. It is easier if you set the cake layer back in the pan and then put the ice cream on top. Then top with the second layer of cake. Wrap well with plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer for 2-3 hours.

Frosting:

• 1/3 cup softened butter
• 1/3 cup shortening
• pinch of salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup milk
• 4 cups icing sugar (more if needed)

Beat the ingredients together until light and fluffy.

Crumb coat the frozen cake with the icing. You may need to do this a couple of times. Sometimes the ice cream and the frosting do not want to stick together the first time, so once you get a layer of frosting on wrap it again and freeze. Whipped cream is much easier to work with than the icing, so if you want you can just frost the cake with whip cream before you want to eat it.

After the icing has a chance to set in the freezer, take it out again and do another layer. I had to do this 3 times before it smoothed and stopped leaking ice cream.

Decorate the cake with meringues and strawberries.