Remember like a month and a half ago when I wrote that post about trying create stuff again in my attempts to get a real job in the creative industry? Well, I got one! Monday will be my first day working at Dreamworks. I thought it would take longer than this, but here we are. So, naturally, I had to celebrate. With champagne. And champagne cake. (Because I can only afford bottom-shelf champagne and it really tastes better in cake form.) I’ve made this Champagne Strawberry Cake before, in cupcake form, but I wanted to return to them because they were really good. And I can take better pictures now.

I’m in a time when there feels like a lot to celebrate (new apartment! new job! returning to this blog!), after a while where there hasn’t been much to celebrate, and it’s a nice feeling. While it is just a new job and there’s nothing like starting a new job to make you feel completely incompetent, for now it has given me that feeling of celebratory-induced nostalgia. (Or, as Bo Burnham summed up in Bezos 1 “look at where you came from, look at you now.”)

In the process of my onboarding, I had to do that silly thing where you list all your addresses for the past seven years. This, for me, included asking my mom what day we moved into the house we moved into before I entered 8th grade! At that point, this blog hadn’t even formally started yet, and I hadn’t the faintest idea that I’d ever need to know the day I moved into that house so I could tell Dreamworks about it. (Or really that I would need to tell any employer about it – this is the kind of adult stuff no one tells you about?? And I really think we could get rid of it, but this is a different rant for a different time.)

But, point being, that feeling of never really being able to predict where life will take you made me very nostalgic – even more so than life events like Graduation ever did. Nothing like a crossing off a step on your dreams checklist to make you look back and see all the weird twists life takes. I never once thought I might have an address in Los Angeles, or that I’d work for the studio that made Shrek. But here we are. Life surprises you. Dreams evolve.

Another contributor to this nostalgic feeling is seeing other kids grow up! As the youngest kid in my family, I very rarely interacted with younger kids – I was always the one people were commenting on “how much I’ve grown,” and I couldn’t see that in many other people! I really thought old people were just being dramatic. (When everyone’s older than you, you can’t really assess their growth. It just recently occurred to me that I’m the same age Molly was when this blog was in its hey-day and that’s hard to believe!)

But we have some family friends with kids who I’ve been able to watch grow up, and my parents sent me an update that one of them has taken an interest in baking and prepared a confetti cake for their dessert (pictured below)! It’s crazy to think that she’s around the age I was when we started this blog, and now she also is on her way to being a baking pro. I may not be used to it, but I enjoy seeing young bakers getting started! There’s new beginnings happening all around! And delicious cakes being baked!

So, consider this cake a toast to the celebratory, exciting feeling of new beginnings, and that feeling of nostalgia that comes with them! Cheers!

Champagne Strawberry Cake

Author: Audrey

Ingredients

For cake:

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

For filling and soak:

Strawberry jelly

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons champagne

For Champagne Frosting:

3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons champagne, at room temperature

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Instructions

For cake:

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line three 6-inch or two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together milk, vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds. Set aside.
In a stand mixer, fit with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This may take 3 to 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is well incorporated.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition. If the batter begins to looks a bit curdled, that’s alright. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the vanilla milk mixture in three batches, starting and ending with the flour. When the batter is almost combined, stop the mixer and finish mixing the batter with a spatula, making sure that any flour bits at the bottom of the bowl are well incorporated.
Divide into the lined cake pans and bake for 25 minutes or until golden and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely before assembly.

For the Champagne soak:

Combine the sugar and water in a small sauce pan set over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring often to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat, and add the champagne and stir. Set aside to let cool.

For the frosting:

With an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter. Mix on low until well blended, and then on medium for another two minutes. Add vanilla and champagne, beating on medium for another minute.

Assembly
To assemble, wait for cakes and soak to be completely cool. Then, start layering cake, brushing or drizzling with champagne soak. Spread with a thin layer of frosting and then a hearty layer of jelly. Continue until top layer, then cover with frosting, and decorate as desired.