My friend Elizabeth’s mom used to drop off lunch for her every now and then during the school day.

It was usually a paper bag containing a Coke. A tiny jar of shrimp cocktail. A can of strawberry icing.

You know. The usual school lunch fare.

Elizabeth would eat the whole can of icing with a spoon in one day.

Did I mention she was stick-thin? Because she was. Of course, she was also an amazing runner, which I imagine did have something to do with it.

Elizabeth and I are still close friends today, and she recently celebrated a birthday. (She’s still nearly a full year younger than I am. So rude.)

When we were finally able to get together to celebrate, I tried this cake recipe.

See, what Elizabeth would have probably been happiest with is just a regular ol’ strawberry cake from a mix with a nice thick layer of canned strawberry icing spread on top.

But that didn’t feel special enough for her birthday.

I’ve found out the hard way, though, that making a really good from-scratch strawberry cake is harder than it looks.

The couple times I’ve tried it, the cakes turned out kind of gray and dry, even though I used different recipes each time. I feel like if I’m going to bake a cake from scratch, that cake ought to at least have the courtesy of looking good if it tastes awful. (Kind of the old “if you can’t be smart, at least be pretty” for baked goods.)

So this time, I decided to attempt a doctored cake mix version instead.

I found several recipes online that seemed like a good bet, but this one caught my eye because it promised an exceptionally moist cake.

Luckily, it was also very forgiving.

And by that I mean that I omitted the oil altogether and didn’t realize it until after I had spread the batter into the pan.

So I casually poured the requisite amount of oil right into the cake pan over the batter and mixed it in with a fork until it stopped looking funny.

(Just in case you wondered, yes, I do think “Mix Until It Stops Looking Funny” would be a fine title for a cookbook.)

I’m glad I tried it. The resulting cake was a little dense, which I actually prefer if the cake itself is nice and moist, and this one is.

(Of course, the cake may have been flat because I mixed the oil in with a fork until the batter stopped looking funny. DETAILS.)

Elizabeth wanted canned frosting over the top of her cake.

Canned strawberry icing is definitely not my jam, but it was her celebration, so that’s what we had. As a result, I can’t vouch for the frosting recipe that accompanied the cake recipe. I’ll have to try it and get back to you. In the meantime, try this recipe.

SHORTCUT STRAWBERRY CAKE

(adapted from Tastes of Lizzy T)

Ingredients
1 box cake mix, white or strawberry (I used Duncan Hines strawberry cake mix)
1 small (3 ounces) package strawberry gelatin
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup cooking oil
4 eggs
1 cup strawberry puree (mine required almost exactly a 16-oz. carton of whole berries)

Directions
■ To make the puree, I used a small food processor. An immersion blender or regular sized processor would also work well. I’m sure you could also just place washed, hulled, halved berries into a zip-top bag and squeeze the mess out of them, which is exactly what I’ll do next time now that I’ve thought of it.
■ Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour two round cake pans or one 9-by-13-inch pan. Set aside. Place all cake ingredients into a mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated. Pour into prepared pan(s). If you realize you left out an ingredient at this point, add it and mix until it stops looking funny. Place pan(s) into oven. Bake for 29-32 minutes for round pans and 32-25 minutes for 9-by-13-inch pan. When cake is done, cake centers will bounce back when touched. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Frost with icing of choice.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.