Happy 4th of July!! If you’re wondering what dessert to make for this special occasion my Easy Strawberry Cake is a holiday goody and favorite that will come out looking like you spent hours in the kitchen baking it, but in reality will leave you more time to spend enjoying the holiday with your family and friends.

I’m going to share a secret with you. I love using ready made store bought ingredients in recipes. It cuts down on time and honestly can taste just as good as something that was made from scratch. The key, however, to using store bought ingredients is to combine them with fresh ingredients. In this case since I decided to use packaged strawberry cake mix; so I added fresh strawberries to the batter. When you add fresh ingredients to something that has already been prepared; you add more flavor and make it pretty difficult for someone to tell whether it is homemade or not.

Check out the instructions for the recipe below. I hope you all have a happy and safe 4th of July that’s filled with family, friends, lots of eating, and fireworks!! (:

Strawberry Cake

Ingredients

1 package of strawberry cake mix

1 (16-ounce) container fresh strawberries

1 tsp of sugar

3 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup of water

1 container of vanilla icing (or you can make your own)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat the bottom of the pan with non stick cooking spray.

Wash, cut the tops off, and dice the strawberries into medium sized pieces. Take 3/4 of the strawberries along with 1 teaspoon of sugar and add them to a ziploc bag. Once in the bag smash the strawberries (I used a soy sauce bottle) until they have combined with the sugar and are a jam like consistency.

Combine the cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, and water in large bowl and mix until combined. Beat with a mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, and pour the mixture into your pan.

Bake for 32-4o minutes. Cooking times may vary depending on the type and size of cake pan you use. Once the cake is done baking, let it cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Frost the cake with vanilla icing and decorate with the remaining strawberries. Enjoy!!