Strawberry Shortcake...Cake

In my family it is well known that my specialty is strawberry shortcake. It's a special treat when I make it and it even has grandma's stamp of approval! So when my aunt asked me to make her a birthday cake, I knew it was time to perfect the cake version of my strawberry shortcake. This was the result:

Looks good, right?

The biscuits I make have some lemon zest in them so I made a lemon scented cake. ("Scented" being a chef-y term for "subtly flavored.") Basically, I infused some sugar with some lemon zest and then used it in my go to vanilla cake recipe.

The filling was easy; I just did what I normally do. Slice up some strawberries, throw a handful or two in the food processor with some lime juice and sugar, then pour the resulting goo over the sliced strawberries. I always get my strawberries from the farmer's market. The ones in the grocery store really pale in comparison flavor-wise. Plus, I usually use an entire 1/2 flat of strawberries and you can't really get those at Safeway.

The third and equally important component of strawberry shortcake is whipped cream. I always make my own whipped cream so I made my own whipped cream frosting. To make it a little more stable, I added some meringue powder and used powdered sugar instead of granulated.

And here's what it looked like when I was done:

Given the whole strawberry-ness of it all I figured it was appropriate to decorate it with strawberry flowers and leaves. I actually wanted it to be a little more dense but I ran out of time. Next time! Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out and, more importantly, it was freaking delicious!