Strawberry Season

I haven't been around here much lately.  Yeah, see, I've been busy feeling sorry for myself in the "oh, my husband works so many hours and hogs the computer, and I can't blog from my work computer, and anyways I'm busy doing laundry all the time" sort of way.

But then that pesky husband of mine did something incredibly sneaky. He bought me a tablet computer. And now I don't have anything to complain about, which is a pity since we all know that is my favorite pasttime.

So I had to haul myself into the kitchen and occupy myself otherwise.

Which was alright, because it's strawberry season here in Israel. Strawberry season starts off in a taunting, 27-shekels-a-kilo sort of way, and before you know it the local discount store is selling 2 kilos for 15 shek and you've gone there 3 times in the past week because you meant to make strawberry cake but ended up eating them all straight out of the box instead.

So if you can manage to keep strawberries in your house for more than 3 minutes, here's what you should do:

1) eat them in your oatmeal

2) eat them dipped in nutella

3) eat them on top of waffles

4) go out, buy more, and make into strawberry swiss meringue buttercream. Actually that link pretty much tells you how to make the whole cake, although I of course made a different cake and glaze.

Bake pioneer woman's chocolate cake in 3 6-inch layers. Level off the tops. Chill if you have time; it makes the cake less crumbly and easier to frost. Don't frost with cold buttercream- it will be too hard to spread.

Frost and fill with strawberries. Crumb coat and make smooth beautiful pink cake with remaining swiss meringue buttercream.

Then whip up some ganache and drizzle over the top. If you want it to "drip" artfully down the sides, take a small spatula and gently nudge some puddles of ganache to the edges. The ganache (or glaze if you use it) has to be liquid enough to move, but not so liquid that it runs down the sides. Smooth the top and enjoy your beautiful strawberry chocolate creation.

Enjoy! I know I did :)