‍One recipe of Strawberry puree, link here

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vanilla almond cake

• 4 1/2 large (158g) egg whites, room temp
• 3 1/2 tablespoon (54g) milk, any fat (for egg mixture), room temp
• 1 3/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)*
• 2 3/4 cups (315g) cake flour**
• 1 1/4 cups (262g) white granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoons kosher salt (I use Diamond Crystal)
• 1/2 cups (100g) unsalted butter, softened
• 4 1/2 tablespoons (52g) canola oil
• 9 3/4 tablespoons (147g) whole milk (for mixing into dry), room temp

Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

(Please try to use weights for this recipe. The volume measurements are close estimates but the perfect recipe is in grams.)

• 3 cups (682g) unsalted butter, cold from the fridge
• 4 3/4 tablespoons (24g) dried milk powder
• 2 tablespoon (28g) water
• 24 tablespoons (340g) cream cheese, full fat***
• 1 1/2 cups (300g) white granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons (18g) dried egg white powder or Wiltons meringue powder
• 1 teaspoons (2g) lemon juice (optional but recommended)****

Make the Cake

1. Place an oven rack in the middle and preheat to 350°F (180°C).
2. Butter the insides of three 6" cake pans and line the bottoms with a circle of parchment paper. Dust a very light coating of flour around the sides of the pans.
3. In a bowl or measuring cup, with a fork whisk together egg whites, milk (make sure to add the one labeled: "for egg mixture"), vanilla extract, and almond extract (optional) until egg is slightly loosened and the milk is mixed in. Set that aside for now.
4. To a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add cake flour, white sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix on low speed for about 30 seconds.
5. To those dry ingredients, add your softened butter and oil and mix on medium-low speed just to combine, about 30 seconds.Add the milk (make sure to add the one labeled: "for mixing into dry") and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. You'll have a thick batter at this point. Scrape the bowl down.
6. Pour the egg white-milk-extract mixture into the thick batter in 3 additions. Mix on medium-low speed for a about 20 seconds after each addition, then scrape the bowl. (If you try to do it all at once, the egg whites have a harder time mixing in properly.)
7. Evenly distribute the batter into the prepared pans.
8. Bake for about 23-28 mins. (Start checking at 20 mins.) You can bake each layer individually, or all 3 at once if you have three pans.
9. Move the pan to a cooling rack and allow the cake to cool slightly.
10. Loosen the edges of the cakes using an offset spatula or butter knife, and flip the cakes out onto a cooling rack so you can peel off the parchment bottom. Make sure they are completely cool before assembling and/or frosting.

Make the Buttercream (can be done days ahead and kept chilled in the fridge. Let it warm slightly before mixing and using.)

1. Remove your cold butter from the fridge and cut into large 1 inch chunks. (I like to pile mine on top of a plate.) Place the butter back into the fridge. We'll need it to stay cool for later on when we add it in.
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2. In a small bowl, add your water to the milk powder to hydrate. Stir to get rid of all the big lumps. The smaller lumps should dissolve by the time we need this. It should look like a thick paste. Set the bowl aside.
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3. Set up a double boiler that allows the bowl of your stand mixer to sit on top of the steam. Bring that to a boil.
   
   Meanwhile, add your cream cheese (cold from the fridge is fine) and white granulated sugar the bowl of your stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, whisk on medium speed until the sugar is completely incorporated, at least 2 minutes. The cream cheese will turn more yellow, start to loosen up, and be grainy from the sugar.
   
   Set aside until your water heats up, at least 5 minutes.
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4. Once you see a good amount of fog rising from the pot, place your stand mixer bowl on top. Using a spatula, stir this mixture periodically, scraping the sides.
   
   The goal is to dissolve all the sugar and loosen the stabilizers in the cream cheese and there's two ways you can go about this:
   
   1. Thermometer method (most reliable): Use a thermometer and steam your cream cheese mixture until it reaches 180F or 82C. All the sugar will be dissolved and it will be borderline too hot to touch.
   
   2. Timing method (less reliable): You can feel the cream cheese mixture until all the sugar has dissolved. Once that occurs, you want to just keep cooking the mixture for an additional 7 minutes (for frosting amounts if you selected: cupcakes, 6 inch 2 or 3 layers, mini cakes, or 8 inch 1 or 2 layers or half sheet pan), otherwise for all other cakes you will need to cook for an additional 10 minutes. The mixture won't boil if it's not sitting directly in the water but it will get hot enough at that point.
   
   Now no matter what method you chose, to know you can move onto the next step you'll want to feel the mixture with your fingers. It will be hot so please be careful and take a small amount off of the spatula.  When you slide the mixture between your fingers, you should feel no lumps or grains of sugar. (If so, you need to continue cooking.) When it's done, to me it kinda feels like Vaseline moisturizer - very slick. It will look like a yellow mixture thickened with cornstarch.
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5. Carefully remove the hot bowl from the double boiler and stir your powdered egg whites and the milk powder paste.
   
   Run the mixer with the whisk attachment for 5 minutes on high speed. At the end of this step, the cream cheese will still be yellow but have the thick texture of an Elmer's glue.
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6. With the mixer on medium speed, drop in your chunks of cold butter. You'll still see large bits of butter in the mixture and that's fine, but once you've added all the butter, turn the mixer up to high and mix until it just comes together. The timing will depend on the quantity and power of your mixer but it should be anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes.
   
   This is the emulsification step - so you're going to see a yellow mess of chunks in your bowl gradually turn to a creamy off white color as the butter takes in the cream cheese.
   
   At the end of this step, your frosting will have come together, be lighter in color, but will be full of big air pockets because we were using the whisk.
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7. Now let's flavor and smooth out our buttercream. Switch over to the paddle attachment. Add your lemon juice if using (it's so good, I highly suggest it if you love a tangy cream cheese.) Let the mixer run on low speed to smooth out all the air pockets - about a minute.
   
   If at this point your frosting is too soft (or at any point during the decoration process for that matter) place your bowl with the frosting in it, in the fridge for about 5 minutes to put a chill on the bowl. Then, mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until it's smooth. Remember, this is an emulsion, so it may look liquid when too hot or look like it has tiny curds when it's too cold. Just keep mixing until the butter brings in the cream cheese, it will come together.
   
   I've tested storing the frosting in the fridge overnight, letting it come to room temp, re-smoothing with the paddle attachment and it worked very well. My baking community on Instagram has also told me that you can freeze and use this buttercream as well.
   
   If you find that the finished cream cheese frosting is overly soft, you can add more softened butter, a tablespoon at a time until it becomes a little easier to work with. This is particularly useful when frosting a very large layer cake, less so for piping on top of cupcakes)

Assembly

1. Level your cakes with a long serrated knife so they'll sit flat.
2. Lay down one cake layer and spread a thin layer of buttercream.
3. Make a slight well and add roughly 1/3 cup of strawberry puree. Place another cake layer on top.
4. Repeat.
5. Do a thin coat of buttercream all around the sides and top of the cake. Allow to chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
6. Do a thicker top coat of buttercream, scraping the sides with a cake scraper to smooth out the frosting.
7. Scrape the top flat and pipe with leftover frosting if desired.

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*Almond flavoring is beautiful in this cake but is optional. Just add more vanilla extract in its place.

**Cake flour really is best for this cake as all-purpose flour just tends to weigh down the crumb into a denser cake. I usually buy King Arthur Flour's unbleached cake flour, since it's readily available at my local Target, but Swan's down or Softasilk will work just as well.

***The cream cheese brands that I’ve tested: Lucerne, Walmart's Great Value (my favorite), or Target's Good and Gather, Trader Joe's, Philadelphia block or tub

****The citric acid contained in lemon juice increases the acidity or "tanginess" of cream cheese without adding a lemon flavor. It's delicious if you love a cream cheese flavor - you can sub vanilla extract, but it does add an extra flavor element on top of the cream cheese instead of enhancing it like lemon juice.

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