Strawberry 4th of July Cake (Real Food Version)

 

Ah, Cool Whip! You look so good, but you’re really so bad! Not only are the first three ingredients water, hydrogenated vegetable oil, and corn syrup, but it only has a miniscule amount of skim milk and less than 2% real cream. Originally it included no dairy at all! So you're not only sacrificing the nutrition found in a real dairy product, but it actually has more calories than homemade whipped cream! 

How’s a real food lover to enjoy her family’s favorite summer treats, which almost always include at least a good dollop of Cool Whip, without giving them a good dollop of corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oil?

Food bloggers to the rescue! With just a quick search, I found multiple sources who claimed that if you add a bit of gelatin to good ‘ol homemade whipped cream, the gelatin will stabilize it and keep it from turning into a runny white puddle.

So of course I had to try it - and what better recipe to start with than my mom's Strawberry Fourth of July Cake? It already includes Jello mixed with Cool Whip, so it seemed like an obvious choice. 

The original recipe called for a half recipe of yellow cake baked into a 9x13 pan, then covered with a layer of strawberry Jello mixed with frozen strawberries, with a dish of Cool Whip folded in. 

To make it healthier, I made homemade strawberry gelatin with honey and grass-fed beef gelatin powder, added the frozen strawberries, and then folded in the freshly whipped cream when the gelatin was syrupy and cool. I spread this over the cake base, put it in the fridge, and hoped for the best.

It turned out perfectly – even better than Mom's! Thank God for real food bloggers and their ideas and inspiration! J

Fourth of July Strawberry Cake (Real Food Version)

½ cup milk

1 Tbsp butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

2 eggs

Heat milk and butter, sift together dry ingredients, and mix all together (will be thin). Pour into 9x13 pan, bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. 

Topping:

4 cups juice (strawberry juice if you can find it)

2 Tbsp unflavored beef gelatin

2 Tbsp honey

12 oz frozen strawberries

2 cups heavy cream

While the cake base cools, mix the gelatin into about a ½ cup of juice in a small bowl. The granules will clump and the mixture will look like very thick applesauce.

Heat the remaining juice until almost boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the honey and the gelatin mixture. Stir until completely dissolved. Add frozen strawberries and let cool until syrupy (I pureed the strawberries into the gelatin with my stick blender because I like the texture better, but my mom leaves them whole – feel free to do whichever you prefer).

While the gelatin cools, whip heavy cream. When gelatin is ready, fold in whipped cream and spread over cake.  Chill until ready to serve.

My mom often makes this with raspberries, which is also very good (I just don’t like the seeds getting stuck in my teeth, so I stay with strawberry).

If you try this recipe, please let me know in the comments how yours turns out!