When we decided to throw a baby shower for Rachel, a post-doc in my lab, I immediately knew I wanted to bake something. Since she’s having a girl, I also knew I wanted it to be pink. So when I found this recipe for pink lady cake on my favorite cooking blog, I knew it would be perfect.
The cake itself is pink due to the pureed strawberries in the batter (plus a drop of red food coloring–I would add a few more drops next time, as it still wasn’t as pink as I was expecting). I was tempted to dye the frosting pink too, but I decided to restrain myself 
Instead, I just wrote “It’s a girl” in pink gel icing and decorated it with fresh strawberries (though I used frozen strawberries in the batter, as suggested in the recipe).
Rachel and her husband Jay cutting the cake.
Overall, I was happy with how the cake turned out, though my amateurish decoration inspired me to look into cake decorating classes As you can see, it only had two layers–I made 2/3 of the recipe because I only have two cake pans, and the original recipe calls for three. I also added a layer of strawberry rhubarb jam in the middle, in addition to the frosting, and that worked out nicely.
Of course, being a perfectionist, I did think cake was a little dry, probably due to a slight overbaking. I think next time I’d split the layers to make a total of four, and make more frosting (which was really great). Regardless, the cake was devoured pretty quickly, and I think everyone enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the June Daring Bakers challenge!
