Neo-Neapolitan Cake {Recipe}

I love Gretchen.  Love, love, love her. In my “motherhood dreams” I am her – 9 kids and all. She’s vibrant, loving, and one heckofa writer.  Oh and did I mention, SHE BAKES?  Seriously, she bakes.  I lay down and wash her feet now.  

You can find Gretchen over here at Lifenut, and wow, that totally does describe her, a Life-NUT!  And I love her, did I mention that?  

Gretchen is sharing with us her recipe for Neo-Neapolitan cake {and cupcakes too}.  Strawberry, Chocolate, and Vanilla – there’s something for everyone here.  

Normally, I’m a scratch baker, avoiding box mixes if I can. In this case, I made an exception because mixing up three different cake batters from scratch could take all day. Also, I figured it was important that the batters be consistent in thickness and baking times. I used Pilsbury cake mixes because they had identical bake times for each flavor. I got devil’s food, white, and strawberry.

Mixing up three batters at once was very easy. I lined up three bowls and poured the cake mixes. I put water in each, then oil, then the eggs. It was like a factory assembly line. I mixed white, washed the beaters, mixed strawberry, washed the beaters, mixed devil’s food, washed the beaters. I went from lightest to darkest in case I missed a glob.

My plan was to use 1/3 of the cake batter from each flavor. 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = one whole cake. This worked out to be 1 1/3 cups of each flavor. I poured devil’s food, then spread it. Then vanilla, then strawberry. I baked it for 34 minutes, which was perfect.

But what should I do with the rest of the batters? I made 24 cupcakes, 8 of each flavor. That took up another 1/3 of the batters. The rest of the batter was spread in a pan side-by-side.

It was a lot of work. It’s not the kind of cake to throw together on a random Tuesday afternoon. But for special celebrations, it’s a lovely, bright, tasty choice I’d do again. In fact, my plan is to make it again for Ollie’s first birthday.

Frosting ideas: What’s great about this cake is that you could use chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla frosting. Any would work. I decided on strawberry because I wanted the cakes to be pink for Valentine’s Day. To color the frosting, I threw a few whole strawberries into a standard vanilla buttercream. It gave the frosting a pretty tint and authentic flavor.

For the cupcakes, I topped them with the strawberry buttercream. I put red sprinkles on some. A few lucky cupcakes got dotted with dark chocolate pomegranate candies.

Let me know if you try it!

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