Cinnamon-Vanilla Bean Cake with Strawberry Rhubarb Buttercream Frosting

I wanted to make something tasty but custom for Heath's Birthday (A week early but we had a lunch with his fam).  Since I've heard amazing things about his mom's strawberry rhubarb pie, I opted out of the pie making...good thing too, her's was delicious!  Instead, I wanted to keep those flavors and have an excuse to get more fondant practice.  My camera batteries were dead, so I just have this cell phone picture and no pictures of the inside :( Looks like I'll just have to make more...

The Cake:

Prepare a recipe of white layer cake, but add 2 tsp of cinnamon with your dry ingredients.  Bake as specified, or in whatever pan/cupcake tin you need for your occasion.

The Frosting:

Prepare a recipe of vanilla buttercream frosting, keeping it on the thick side.  You may want to almost eliminate the milk addition, as the strawberry-rhubarb reduction is juicy.

In a small pot, combine 1/2 cup chopped strawberries, 1/2 cup chopped rhubarb, and 1/2 cup sugar.  Stir thoroughly and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, until all ingredients are tender.  

I used the smoothie attachment for my hand mixer, but a food processor or blender would do the trick.  Puree/blend the sauce to work out the chunks.  Let cool completely.  Slowly add to your buttercream until you reach the flavor you desire.  This seemed VERY sweet to me, next time I'm going to either cut back on the sugar or not use buttercream, but it tasted very good with the cake.  Frosting will be a light pink.

Frost your cake/cupcakes as desired, and enjoy! The cinnamon really compliments the strawberry rhubarb flavors for a very delicious treat.

This particular cake I decorated with fondant (blue water and camoflage upper; white fish with luster dust) and modeling chocolate (grizzly bear and bobber) to make it very "Heath-ified."  The camoflage was a pain to make...split into 4 different colors of greens and browns, then arrange in a camoflage-like way as you roll it out.  Might stick with solid colors until I'm a little more seasoned at decorating cakes!