Strawberry filling for butter cake - opinions please!

[Toucancan]

I'm making a standard vanilla butter cake recipe for a birthday cake and wanted to do strawberry flavoured buttercream filling between the layers.

Does anyone have experience with using strawberry flavouring / extract with the buttercream? Is it very "fake" tasting or is it ok?

Or would it be better to thinly slice some strawberries and layer them with vanilla flavoured buttercream? Would the strawberries make the cake soggy?

I'm torn! Any opinions on either method would be welcome.

[DandelionAndBedrock]

Could you not make a strawberry puree and stir it through? Lorraine Pascale does that with blueberries. You would need to sieve it carefully but I think that would be yummy!

Otherwise fresh strawberries should be ok but put them on at the last minute so they don't go soggy.

[Ragwort]

Why not use fresh strawberries and whipped cream, I think that would taste better than strawberries and butter cream.

How long after you have made the cake will you be serving it?

I would avoid any strawberry 'flavouring', won't be very nice.

[Toucancan]

Ooh I'm liking the purée idea, thanks Dandelion I will look up Lorraine's recipe.

Yes I know what you mean Ragwort - I don't normally like fake flavourings but I had a cake recently that had similar and I wanted to try to replicate it - I thought maybe flavourings had changed since I was a kid baking with mum!

I'm making the cakes this afternoon to freeze for the weekend. I'll probably take out of the freezer Friday night and fill and decorate on Saturday, for Sunday eating. The joys of planning with young kids .

[Toucancan]

Well, the cake was a resounding success! Thanks Dandelion, the strawberry purée worked brilliantly. I had a little purée left over which I spread onto the layers as well. The Lorraine Pascale recipe was a Daily Mail link, but managed to find this recipe instead:

allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/40059/real-strawberry-buttercream-icing.aspx

Here are some photos of my daughters' finished birthday cake in case anyone's interested! Decorating the sides was a very messy job but I did find a way in the end that was a bit easier than launching sprinkles at high speed...

[DandelionAndBedrock]

Well done, it looks fab!! Glad it worked.