3 Tier Ombré Turquoise Gluten Free Dairy Free Strawberry Cake with Whipped Coconut Filling and Buttercream

Yes it's a mouthful!  It's a gluten free dairy free strawberry cake with whipped coconut cream and strawberry filling and buttercream frosting!  And it was soooooo yummy!  I think all the moms had seconds!

This was for my daughters birthday party.  A garden theme party!

The gluten free strawberry cake recipe is from the cookbook Cooking For Isaiah by Silvania Nardone.  (Great book)

I doubled her strawberry cupcake recipe and split between 2 regular size round cake pans, a small/medium corningware dish and a small Wilton cake pan.  I improvise to make different size layers :)

For the strawberry whipped coconut cream filling I put a can of Thai kitchen coconut milk in the back of the fridge overnight and when ready to use, scoop out the cream as it seperates from the water.  Whip it in the electric mixer and add a tiny bit of powdered sugar and about a tablespoon of strawberry jam.  Put back in fridge until ready to assemble the cake.  The 2 regular size round cakes were the bottom and I spread the whipped coconut cream between the layers.  Then using a bread knife, sliced the other 2 cakes in half to put the whipped coconut filling between those layers.  

For the frosting I user the regular buttercream recipe on the powdered sugar bag although I substitute butter with Spectrum Organic palm shortening and Earth Balance Vegan Butter (you can do all shortening though) and use almond milk.  

I applied frosting between the different tiers to secure the cake and applied a thin crumb coat...then skipped the whole freezing thing...went straight to piping on icing.  I added a drop or two of Wilton gel pastel blue food coloring for a very soft color and then just piped on with a frosting bag.  I didn't use a tip, I just snipped the corner of the bag and started piping it on.  Each time the bag ran out of frosting, I added a drop or 2 more of Wilton turquoise food coloring and continued piping frosting around the cake, basically just squeezing the bag and rotating the cake stand to get it around.  I'm not a cake decorator, so I have no special techniques or anything...but I had fun kinda slightly changing the way the frosting piped on as it went on, working from the top and spiraling down.  

At then end, with the left over dark turquoise frosting I piped a heart on top and my daughter placed little paper flowers we found in a $0.50 bin at micheals.  

This cake was one if the yummiest cakes I've ever had!  I wasn't sure about the strawberry whipped coconut cream but it was a good experiment!  I was originally just going to out strawberry jelly between layers and then the idea to mix it with coconut cream came to kind and I live how it turned out!  

We try to avoid food dyes for the most part, but sometimes it's nice to make exceptions and have a pretty turquoise cake :)

The best part us when you make something gluten free and dairy free and everyone loves it...not because it's "good for being gluten free and dairy free" but because it us just freaking good!!!  I love this strawberry cupcake/cake recipe from Silvania Nardone and I would love to post it but it's not mine and besides, her book is good anyways!