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Chocolate Strawberry Valentine’s Surprise Cake

 

Surprise your gals or better half with a cake filled with an unexpected Valentine’s Day treat. I used two box cake mixes for ease but feel free to use any of your favorite cake recipes and maybe add some food coloring to take the V-Day theme even further. This cake is all about the surprise, what it’s made of is entirely up to you.

Here’s what I used to make this cake. You can also make ahead and freeze.

Ingredients:

1 box red velvet cake mix
1 box strawberry cake mix
1 lb. tub of cream cheese frosting
6 eggs
1 cup olive oil
2 cups unsweeted almond milk
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 mini cake mold 2” x 4”
1 tbsp. of butter
parment paper
Sprinkles (I mixed hearts with white sprinkles and white pearlized sprinkles).

Directions:

• Make boxed cake according to directions or you can substitute ingredients. I used almond milk instead of the water my box called for as well as olive oil instead of the vegetable oil.

• Cut 2 circles of parchement paper to fit wiithint the cake mold.

• Melt 1 tbsp. of butter to lightly butter the cake molds, place the parchement paper within the mold and use the remaining on the parchement paper.

• Fill the mold ¾ of the way and bake. Mine took about 18 min. with convection baking at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

• When baked, remove from oven and let cool.

• Divide the cakes into 2 layers and remove the rounded top (that’s extra).

• When cooled, cut a hole in the center of all 4 layers. I stacked them when cutting to ensure the hole was even throughout.

• Put your 4 layers of cake in the freezer (not stacked).

• Using a double boiler melt ½ cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips or you can use the microwave and stir every 10 seconds until completely melted. Then incorporate into your tub of cream cheese frosting.

• Before you start decorating your cake put it on your serving dish or cut a piece of cardboard, put some buttercream/frosting and stick a piece of parchement paper on that to hold the parchement paper to the cardboard. You can decorate on their and easily move between plates if needed. Do the same when you start to layer your cake. Put a few dots of frosting on the parchement paper and place your first layer so it stays in place.

• When layering your cake, use the 2 bottom layers (the original bottom when it was baking in the mold) as your top and bottom when layering. In between each layer spread your frosting but don’t put any in the center hole.

• In the center, use a funnel to fill the center of your layered cake with your sprinkles of choice.

• Frost the exterior of the cake as best as you can and put in the freezer or refrigerator for about 5 min. It’s easier to smooth out the edges when the chocolate frosting is cold. You can use your finger with warm water or dip your small offset spatula to smooth the edges. Then decorate as you’d like.

Enjoy!

Cathy

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