Let me start this by saying I have strange taste buds, I've come to accept that. So with that I will try to show you my adventure for a strawberry cake. It isn't done. But there was is a nice flow with this recipe that I have enjoyed and maybe others could learn from my process. My vision of a strawberry cake being a plain vanilla cake with macerated(?) strawberries on top. Take strawberries, cut them up into a bowl and sprinkle sugar on top of them. Stir it up and put it in the fridge for an hour or so. You end up with this deliciously sweet strawberries with a ton of juice. Drizzle that shit on a plain piece of white/yellow cake! Delicious. Anyway... Thats what I wanted in a vape. Sweet heavy natural ripe strawberry with a little more than a hint of cake.
I made several of the revisions at the same time so it may get a little confusing. Always 30/70 0mg. I test the on my original IGO-W single coil twisted 26g 0.65ohm. 30ml test batches.
V1- Cake(yellow) FW - 5%
Vanilla Cupcake CAP - 1%
Strawberry Ripe TFA - 7%
Whipped cream TFA - 1%
The choices should be fairly evident of why they were chosen. The first day it was heavy super sweet cake. As the first week went on the cake diminished and became a sweet strawberry. A week later it's just sweet strawberry with very light cake. Not enough of the baked flavor and a creamy vanilla flavor I'm not enjoying. Split this mix this on day 2 and added 1% dragonfruit... Not a major difference.
V1.2-ish (the quest for cake) Used v1 and added 1% cake batter and lowered the strawberry by 1%
After a week this was a creamy thick vanilla whipped cream. Seriously sweet and heavy. I like sweet...this was too sweet. Just couldn't do it. Flushed this one.
V1.21 (Later named "BGS") mixed a few days after mixing 1.2 when a few new flavors arrived. Reduced the vanilla cupcake to 0.5%. 1.2 was already heavy vanilla @ day 2-3 but hadn't let it steep for the week to hate it. I added 0.5% dulche de Leche. Just for shits and giggles.
I don't know where the strawberry went(insane taste buds reminder) but after a week this was some real creamy goodness. Sweet creamy, good mouth feel. Vanilla has been tamed here. Could almost feel the milk film on the back of my throat like after chugging some ice cold whole milk. THICK. Labeled it as Bovine Glandular Secretion to be worked on a trip a later date. This is good...but definitely not strawberry cake.
At this point a major downfall... AT&T pushed an update, phone had to be reset to default. I lost almost all my recipes. I back them up regularly so it wasn't catastrophic. Tasting notes were the major loss since I shorthand the recipe on the bottle.
Recipes continued on this same cake fighting strawberry trend. I went through 7 other revisions. Cake(yellow) is delicious... But it's seems not to be a concentrate. It just disappears. Vanilla cupcake just had way too much vanilla flavor to be included in the recipe. Cake batter was just too sweet and took away from the baked cake flavor. It's good, just not here. So I ordered a few more flavors. I learned my lesson with VBIC(pepper) by ordering 4oz with all the Mustard Milk hype. I'm stingy/cheap/cautious and then disappointed. Want it? Pay for shipping the 3+oz is free. Which leads me to Biscuit. I have avoided this flavor for fear of being disappointed again. Gremlin cancer flash sale, sold a shit load of my ADV within a week, cake yellow drove me to the brink. Between losing all my recipes and notes I mentally walked away for a few days. Biscuit time.
Back to where I left off with the recipes.
V3-ish
Cake(yellow) FW - 5%
Vanilla custard V2 CAP - 1%
Strawberry Ripe TFA - 7%
Marshmallow CAP - 1%
The vanilla cupcake and the whipped cream combo was just too much. I still wanted the vanilla so I added the custard as a hint of vanilla and to maintain some of the creaminess. Changed out the whipped cream for marshmallow for a thicker mouth feel. After a week steep I felt very close to what I wanted. The strawberry has a dark(?) tone. The strawberry is just a tad on the strong side but I really like how this is going. Then my Joy and Biscuit arrived!
V3.1(?)
Cake(yellow) FW - 5%
Vanilla custard V2 CAP - 1%
Strawberry Ripe TFA - 7%
Marshmallow CAP - 1%
Biscuit INW - 0.5%
Joy FA - 0.5%
Side note on joy. In passing I read it had a funnel cake taste... Funnel cake. I taste yeast or a very light beer at 3% alone. Read more after tasting it "it adapts to what you put it with." I don't taste sweet anything. It's beer. Yeast. So V3 turned out as a beautiful strawberry cookie/cake flavor... With a hint of beer. That was yesterday after almost a week steep. I mixed another bottle and left out the Joy. Mixed/tumbled it for 12 hours. Really... Really good. It's not what I was aiming for originally but close and good. The cake has a sweet creamy cookie, not cookie but cookie, with a nice dark ripe strawberry. Inhale is dark strawberry with a cake-ish baked goodness exhale.
Cake(yellow) FW - 5%
Vanilla custard V2 CAP - 1%
Strawberry Ripe TFA - 7%
Marshmallow CAP - 1%
Biscuit INW - 0.5%
So here we are. I feel like I'm out of ideas. I'm happy with it, It's not done though. Strawberry may be strong for others. Give it a shot. Give me some pointers to refine it?
INA Strawberry Shisa is described as Strawberries covered in white sugar. Sounds like what you're looking for in a Strawberry. I have it and find it true to it's description. I love it, it does need a higherish (yes, that's now a word) percent compared to most INA flavors, like 6-7% in my experience.
I'm guessing you mean FW Yellow Cake. Or CAP Cake Batter. CAP doesn't make a yellow cake.
I've had a lot of luck recently with 3% TFA Organic Strawberry, 2% FW Strawberry and 1% TFA Strawberry for a sort of sugary strawberry glaze type thing. I think that would work really well for what you're trying to accomplish. I haven't messed around with CAP Marshmallow, but if you have it, .5-1% CAP Sugar Cookie lends a really nice sugary, baked cake-y type of flavor when mixed with FW Yellow Cake.
Love the description of your process! If you want a pretty natural tasting strawberry, try fitting some FA Strawberry in there, maybe with tiny amounts of tfa or caps to boost it a little. It's not weak, but it only goes so far--like the best natural banana flavors--and can be overpowered with a lot of cake/cream. I've been on a strawberry cake journey lately myself.
How about TFA Graham Cracker Clear and/or CAP Graham Cracker .. I am liking the CAP version best.
Yellow Cake seems like a light flavor to me that just isn't good in high percentages.
Other then that TFA has Vanilla Cupcake which seems more Vanilla then Cupcake to me. Of course when I eat a Cupcake the highest note is the frosting so yellow cake in a small amount is pretty much what would make it work.
What are you going for an authentic cupcake or can it vary? Are you not adding Frosting?? I know the CAP Strawberry Sweet to me tastes more like the Strawberry I have tasted in Cakes. TFA Strawberry is just Nasty to me and reminds me of Candy and TFA Strawberry Ripe to myself tastes like more of a background flavor that you can use with several juices to give a fuller flavor.
I can say I myself would lower the Strawberry, but I never go over like 4-5% tops on one flavor alone.
Do you get any cinnamon from the CAP graham cracker? The strawberry, in previous, versions disappeared at just 1% less which is why I bumped it back up in later revisions. Since the recipe has been tweaked a lot since the complete loss of strawberry I may be able to tone it down again. I'll give it a shot.
No Cinnamon Taste at all IMO. Only flavor I had with Cinnamon was TFA Cinnamon Sugar Cookie which is a great flavor. Yeah, For the TFA Strawberry (Ripe) you can probably go about 6% or so. It all depends what YOU like though. I can't drink Regular Coke. Way too sweet.