Cake Stuffed Strawberries

A friend of mine posted this wonderful link to an amazing idea for these creative and ingenious goodies. As soon as I saw a picture and read the recipe, I knew right away that I would have to re-create it ASAP. So since I was already making cupcakes for Mother's Day, I thought I would use half of the cake batter to create these lovely morsels. Now this recipe isn't very hard, however it is very very time consuming and it requires many steps, but in the end it will never fail to impress those you made them for.

Now for my batch of cake stuffed strawberries, I decided to use a banana cake because what goes better with strawberries than banana, right? Well, I guess other than chocolate but I've got that covered too. Anyway, give this a try and I guarantee you will be pleased.

Ingredients:

1 baked cake of your choice, 9 by 13 size (I used banana cake)

1 cup frosting of your choice (I used vanilla)

1 box of large strawberries (the larger the strawberries, the better)

2 cups minimum of semi-sweet chocolate chips or chocolate melts

You will also need: wax paper

Directions:
1. Prepare the cake mix according to package directions using any of the recommended pan sizes. When cake is done, crumble while warm into a large bowl, and stir in frosting until well blended. Set aside

**Please note that you will not need to use all of this frosting cake mixture for these strawberries, I recommend you use the remaining frosting cake mixture to create some cake balls, since it is basically the same ingredients, plus you can freeze your finished cake balls for another occasion or serve them along with the stuffed strawberries depending on how many you are planning on feeding. Click here for my simple cake ball recipe.

2. Prepare your strawberries for stuffing, by cutting a triangle out of the bottom tip of the strawberry. Also, if your knife is small enough you can try inserting the knife in the hole and slowly turning it around to try and make the hole larger so that there is more space for cake. Now stuff the strawberry with the cake mixture. You can do so by pushing small pieces in the hole to start then fill in the triangle as well. Next you will take the cake mixture and cover the outside of the strawberry by sticking it to the outside of it. Make sure it sticks firmly. Pat the mixture around the entire bottom of the strawberry, if the cake mixture isn't sticking very well, then try adding more frosting to make it sticky. Once the outside of strawberry is fully coated, then set it aside on some wax paper. Repeat until all strawberries are stuffed, then stick them in the freezer for about an hour or in the fridge for about 3 hours until cake mixture becomes firm.

3. Next, before removing the strawberries from the freezer or fridge, prepare your melted chocolate. You can either melt chocolate chips in a glass bowl in the microwave, or in a a double boiler pan, stirring often until smooth. Add about 1 Tbsp of coconut oil to the chocolate chips to help smooth the chocolate out. Chocolate should be melted but not super hot. Keep the heat on it's very lowest setting possible.

4. Next, remove the strawberries from the freezer and dip them in the chocolate by placing the strawberry on a fork to dip into the chocolate, once sitting in the chocolate use a spatula or spoon to help cover all of the cake mixture on the strawberry with chocolate. Don’t hold the stem part of the strawberry because your strawberry will be heavy and rip off. Hold the entire top of the strawberry. Place the chocolate covered strawberries on waxed paper and then place them in the refrigerator until the chocolate hardens, about 1 hour. Serve within 24 hours. Enjoy!!!!

Recipe adapted from: http://www.1finecookie.com/2011/05/cupcake-stuffed-strawberries-make-them-for-your-mom-make-them-for-a-party-or-make-them-for-national-strawberry-month/