I have used this recipe a few times and I like it because the sponge is not as fragile as chiffon and the whipped cream is stabilised with gelatin and thus it can be piped into specific shape. The first few times I used this recipe, I made it exactly as the recipe stated, strawberry shortcake. In a bid to reduce wastage, I am slowly learning to adapt and use whatever I have on hand. For the most recent bake, I used fresh peach in the filling and topped the cake off with passion fruit curd which was also available in fridge.

(Makes a 8 inch square cake)

To make the sponge layers

Dry Ingredients

  • 145g top flour
  • 100g castor sugar
  • 15g corn flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients

  • 150g unsalted butter
  • 65g fresh milk
  • 5 eggs separated
  • 1 whole egg

Method

  1. Preheat the oven at 160 degrees and line the base of the bake pan with baking paper and wrap the bottom of the pan with aluminium foils.
  2. Sift the top flour, corn flour and salt together and set aside.
  3. Heat the butter in the milk over medium heat till warm, but not boiling.
  4. Take the melted butter mixture off the heat and add the sifted flour mixture all at once to the butter mixture and stir to combine using a spatula.
  5. Add the egg and the egg yolks and mix till smooth.
  6. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites (meringue) till firm peaks.
  7. Add one third of the meringue to the egg and butter batter and mix using the balloon hand whisk. You don’t have to be too gentle at this point. This step is to make the consistency of the batter more similar to that of the meringue to allow for easier combining.
  8. Fold the remaining meringue gently into the batter until combined.
  9. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and place the cake pan which is lined with the aluminium foil in a tray of boiling water (au bain marie) and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes.
  10. You can test the readiness of the cake by inserting a skewer into the middle of the cake and if the skewer comes out clean, the cake is baked.
  11. Take the cake out off the oven and cool inverted or if you see the cake pulling away from the sides of the cake pan, you can remove from cake pan and cool the cake upright.

To make the stablised whipped cream

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp gelatin powder
  • 8 tsp cold water
  • 2 cups cold whipping cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tbsp icing sugar (optional – I omit this most of the time if the cake is sweet)

Method

  1. Put the water in a small saucepan and sprinkle gelatin powder on top and let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes.
  2. Melt the gelatin in the water over low heat until fully melted.
  3. Whip the cold whipping cream together with the icing sugar till medium peak.
  4. Pour the cooled gelatin liquid slowly into the whipped cream and whisk till stiff peak.
  5. Fold the vanilla extract into the stabilised whipped cream and use to assemble the cakes.

To make the simple sugar syrup

Ingredients

  • 50 ml water
  • 50 ml sugar
  • any other desired flavours

Method

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the water over medium heat.
  2. Take off the heat to cool and add any desired flavours. For this recipe, I did not use any other flavours.

To assemble

  • the cake sponge
  • the simple syrup
  • the stabilised whipped cream
  • strawberries or any other fruits. I used peaches here.

Method

  1. Using a cake leveler or a knife, cut the sponge into 2 or 3 layers.
  2. Place the bottom later on a cake board or a serving place and pipe a layer of whipped cream on top. Add cut fruits on top.
  3. Add the second layer of cake on top and do the same as step 2 if you have a third layer. If not, just place the second layer on top.
  4. Frost the cake with the remaining whipped cream and decorate as desired.

For my last bake, I added peaches instead of strawberries and I topped the cake off with some passion fruit curd and that added a lovely zing to the cake. Sadly, I did not take a photo of the cake, so here’s one done some time ago with a friend.