Strawberry "Secret Weapon" Cream Cake

Being a mommy, one of my tasks in my job desciption is 'Baking cakes for Bake Sales at the Kindergarten'. Apparently not many mothers (or even fathers!) know this yet, until they are forced coerced asked nicely by the Kindergarten teachers if they could do so.  Luckily, I love baking so this is not a chore. But it did remind me of a certain scene in a movie where Carrie Bradshaw played a harassed working mom who wanted to bake a cake for her child's kindergarten bake sale so much, that she ended up at a corner supermarket at 8pm buying an apple pie and a pie dish to fit in it, and then rolling and squishing the apple pie into it to make it look homemade. Poor Carrie Bradshaw. And so I am sharing this recipe with other busy moms. It is essentially a 'pour-everything-into-the-mixer' cake. If you are pressed for time, yes you can even artfully squeeze whipped cream out of the spray can and plop strawberries on the arty cream bits (I won't tell!).  Let this be the secret weapon cream cake for busy moms and dads everywhere!! :-)

Ingredients

4	Eggs
200 g	Sugar
A few drops	Vanilla essence/1 vanilla pod
125 ml	Cooking oil (I used Canola oil)
150 ml	Lemonade (e.g Orangina, Fanta lemon)
250 g	All purpose flour
3 teaspoons	Baking powder
500 ml	Whipping cream
250 ml	Philadelphia Cream Cheese/German Schmand
4 tablespoons	Icing sugar (you can add more if you like it sweeter)
1kg	Strawberries

Here's how we do it.

Grease your cake tin with butter or line it with parchment paper.
Turn on the oven to 180 degrees.

Meanwhile....
Using a electric/hand mixer, mix eggs, sugar and vanilla essence until a pale yellow colour.
Then add in oil and lemonade and mix for about 2 minutes.
Then add in the flour and baking powder, and whip the whole mixture until uniformly yellow and light (about another 2 minutes with an electric mixer)

Then pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and slide it into the oven for the next 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven. The main thing is, that at the end of the baking period, a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean and the cake surface should not wobble and should feel firm to the touch.

And now for the cream filling and topping

Using the (clean) mixer again, whip the cream with the sugar until stiff. Then add in the cream cheese and beat the mixture until fluffly and spreadable but still somewhat stiff.

Prep the strawberries by slicing or chopping or merely loping off the green tops according to your fancy.

Putting it all together

Let the cake cool for about an hour before doing this. The next day would be even better as the cake would have had time to cool off and really 'mould' together. (If you pressed for time, you don't even have to cut it!)

Anyway, cut the cake into half sideways. Spread half of the strawberries and cream on top of the bottom half of the cake and place the top half of the cake on it to make a strawberries-and-cream cake sandwich. Then spread the rest of the cream and strawberries on it.

You can chill the cake or eat it immediately (though I would recommend letting it rest for about 30 minutes before cutting to let everything meld together).

And voila! Yummy scrumptiousness that tells you that Spring and the sun is here with every bite.  And it is homemade :-).