Roasted Strawberries and Goat Cheese Cream Cake! Your Strawberry Game all Grown Up!

It’s strawberry season! It’s supposed to be Summer (if you could just let Mother Nature know that). It’s BBQ and outdoor dining season! So, time to whip out your favorite strawberry forward eats and treats! Well, I have your dessert covered with this all grown up elegante’ strawberries and cream cake! Behold my Roasted Strawberry and Goat Cheese Buttercream Triple Layer Cake! Whew!

I love strawberries, who doesn’t, but I really love them in peak strawberry season when they are perfectly sweet and beautifully red! Plus strawberry desserts are the best! They are just the quintessential summer treat! Just really takes me back to my youth, walking to the local store, getting a soft serve dipped in a strawberry shell (not that it is real strawberries, but darn good)! Trying to eat it faster than it can melt down my arm!!

I really wanted to goat this triple layer beauty up! By incorporating goat milk and cheese! Did you know goat’s milk is much easier to digest, has more vitamins and is more nutrient dense and absorbs better in our bodies than cow’s milk? Well, now you know. I actually have milked a goat in my past, that’s right I also showed a sheep! Yep, this city girl is a little country! I was an equestrian as a child, and we went to a horse show that was at the Grundy County Fair. So there were all sorts of shows going on for agriculture and farm animals! So, I can now add goat milker and sheep shower to my resume! I hear they are in high demand right now.   🙂

Any who, this strawberry cake is all grown up! Kind of like me now…sometimes! By roasting the strawberries, it gives them a deeper depth of flavor and caramelizes the juices for that richness you can’t get raw. For the actual cake, I steeped freeze dried strawberries in the goat milk to make a delicious strawberry milk for the batter. To amp up the goatyness, I also used goat cheese in the cake batter as well! Then to top it off, I added more goat cheese to the vanilla swiss meringue buttercream! So divine, the goat cheese doesn’t hit you over the head, but adds a subtle tang that pairs perfectly with the sweet of the buttercream and helps to enhance the strawberry flavor of the cake!

Ribbons of smooth and ultra creamy goat cheese swiss meringue circle the top of this strawberry sultriest! The center is a combo of the roasted strawberry puree combined with this luscious buttercream!

Three tender layers of strawberry cake sandwich the roasted strawberries and cream!

Sooo pretty too! This cake will definitely be the bell of the ball…or BBQ! Dig in!

So, go get your goat on this weekend or any weekend and make this all grown up Roasted Strawberries and Goat Cheese Cream Cake. Just in time to celebrate Dad!

Happy Weekending!

Diane

Roasted Strawberries and Goat Cheese Cream Cake!

 

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Prep time

1 hour

Cook time

33 mins

Total time

1 hour 33 mins

 

Author: Diane

Serves: 8-10

Ingredients

• For the Cake:
• ¾ cup unsalted butter - room temp
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• ¼ cup soft goat cheese – room temp
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2½ cups cake flour
• 3 large eggs room temp
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 cups goat milk for steeping (1 cup measured for cake after strawberry steeping)
• 16oz fresh strawberries (roasted)
• 2 tbsp. dolcedi sweetener or agave nectar (for roasting strawberries)
• 1½ 1oz bags of dried strawberries
• Optional pink food coloring (enhances the pink of the layers)
• For the Goat Cheese Swiss Meringue:
• 5 egg whites
• 1½ cups of sugar
• ½ tsp. salt
• 4 sticks unsalted butter room temp
• 6oz of soft goat cheese room temp
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Roast the Strawberries:
2. Pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees and line a large baking sheet with tinfoil and set aside.
3. Hull the strawberries leaving whole. Add to a bowl and mix in the sweetener, toss to make sure all the strawberries are full coated. Arrange on the baking sheet in a single layer. Bake for 1 hour.
4. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly. Add to the bowl of a food processor and puree until smooth. Pour into a medium bowl and set aside. Can be made a day ahead, store covered in the fridge.
5. For the Cake:
6. Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees. Line three 6 inch round cake pans with parchment paper and lightly coat with non-stick spray and set aside. In a medium saucepan over medium heat add the goat milk. Heat until scaled, edges begin to bubble. Turn off heat and add the freeze dried strawberries. Make sure they are all fully submerged. Steep for 15 to 20 minutes.
7. While the strawberries are steeping mix all your dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.
8. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and the butter and mix on medium until smooth, about a minute or two. Slowly pour the sugar in with the butter and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Around 5 minutes. Add the goat cheese and mix to combine.
9. Next add the eggs one at a time and mix to fully incorporate after each addition. Add the oil and mix until fully blended, light and shiny. Add the vanilla extract.
10. Pour the strawberry milk through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl, then measure out one cup of strawberry milk.
11. Add a third of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Add half of the strawberry milk and mix to incorporate. Add another third of dry and just mix, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Next, pour in the other half of the milk and mix to incorporate. Add the remainder of the dry and mix to just combine, do not over mix.
12. Fill each prepared cake pan with equal amounts of batter (I like to use a kitchen scale so they are perfect). Smooth off the tops and place on the middle rack evenly spaced apart. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Rotate pan positions half way through.
13. Allow cakes to cool in pan on wire racks for about 10 minutes, then turn out and allow to completely cool on racks. Once cool, using a cake leveler or serrated knife, carefully cut off the dome top. (do what you will those tops, I like to pop them right in my mouth!) Cakes can be made a day ahead, cooled cakes can be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the fridge until ready to decorate.
14. For the Goat Cheese Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
15. Separate whites from yolks in the bowl of a stand mixer.
16. Pour sugar in bowl with the egg whites and add the salt.
17. Place bowl over, not touching, a pot with simmering water.
18. Whisk constantly until sugar has completely dissolved around 160 degrees. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can tell it’s done when you rub a little of the mixture between your fingers and it is completely smooth with no graininess. Should take about 10 minutes.
19. Then return bowl to stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.
20. Begin beating the eggs and sugar until whites are glossy and stiff peaks have formed.
21. The bowl should be cool to the touch, this will take around 10 minutes.
22. Next switch to the paddle attachment and beat on medium high speed.
23. Add the butter slowly one piece at a time to incorporate. The mixture will look like it’s curdled, keep mixing, that is normal.
24. Mix until frosting is smooth and shiny. Add in the goat cheese in pieces and mix to fully incorporate. Buttercream will smooth and creamy.
25. Frost the Cake:
26. Place one cake round on a cardboard round and set on a cake turntable (makes decorating much easier). In a large piping bag add some of the frosting. You don't need a tip for this step. Pipe a circle around the exterior of the cake to create a barrier, add another one inside that one.
27. Add about half a cup of the roasted strawberry puree (if you made ahead and chilled, make sure it's room temp for decorating) and smooth with off-set spatula or knife. Pipe circles over the top of the puree so covered in frosting. Repeat this same process with the second cake layer.
28. Top the third cake on top and pipe frosting over the top layer and smooth with off-set spatula. Go around the layers and fill in-between with more buttercream. Some of the roasted strawberry will seep through, but I liked the aesthetic of that. I kept it naked (scandalous) and just took the flat side of my cake scraper and placed directly up to the side of the cake at a tight 45 degree angle and spread the frosting out and around.
29. For the ribbon of frosting on top I used a large petal tip fitted to a large pastry bag and Piped along the edges.
30. Next combine the left over strawberry puree to the left over buttercream in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat with paddle attachment until combined. Fill the strawberry buttercream in a large pastry bag fitted with tip of choice, I used a large star tip and fill in the middle of the top of the cake. Top cake with fresh strawberry. Serve at room-temp and store left-overs covered in the fridge for up to 3 days.
31. Enjoy!

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