If this elaborate looking cake doesn’t get your #tastebuds tingling then I don’t know what will!! This cake was made for a friend to #celebrate the end of their Masters degree so it needed to be fit for the #occasion. There are a lot of components to this cake, but the final appearance is quite striking. All of the decorations are very simple to make and the flavour itself is a classic ‘strawberries and cream’. With silky smooth Italian meringue buttercream, and the sweetness of strawberries, it is a perfect combination to a classic vanilla sponge cake. Topped off with a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands and you have yourself a celebration cake! As an added #bonus, it will also pair beautifully with a glass of bubbles! Of course, depending on who you are making the cake for, choose you colour theme as you see fit. Here, I used a ‘Rose’ colour and darkened it slightly with a touch of ‘Sky Blue’.
In terms of how long you want to spend making the cake, there are certain things you can do to shorten the time it takes. Firstly, you can of course use shop bought jam. What I like about making it yourself however, is that you get more substantial bits of #strawberries in it and it makes a real difference. I used a packet of frozen, whole strawberries for mine so you get a huge #burst of strawberry flavour with every bite of cake….delicious! You can also use a standard buttercream for your cake, a recipe for which you can find on most of my previous cake blogs. I do find however, that standard butter icing is sweeter than Italian #meringue butter icing so you may want to consider this if the person you’re baking for doesn’t have too much of a sweet tooth.
I really hope you enjoy baking this one, whether it is for a birthday, baby shower or graduation. I had so much fun with it and hope you do too. As always, if you decide to try it out, let me know how it goes by leaving a comment below.
Happy baking. X
Makes: 16-18 portions
Time: 3- 3 ½ hours
Ingredients
For the cake
300 g sugar
300 g butter
300 g flour
6 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla essence
Food colouring (Rose)
For the jam:
400 g frozen strawberries
20 mL water
150 g sugar
For the Italian meringue butter icing:
225 g granulated sugar
100 mL water
4 egg whites (120 g if using bottled egg whites)
250 g butter, cubed and softened to room temperature
Pinch salt
1 ½ tsp vanilla essence
Food colouring (Rose and Sky blue)
To decorate:
1 pack strawberries
150 g white chocolate
Hundreds and thousands
Method:
1. First preheat your oven to 180°C and line and grease your baking tins. I used 3 9 inch baking tins.
2. To make the cake, cream together the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl
3. Add in your eggs one at a time with a little flour in between each one to stop the mixture from curdling.
4. Once combined sift in the rest of the flour along with the baking powder and your vanilla essence.
5. If the mixture is a little thick add a little bit of milk until you have the right consistency.
6. Remove half of your mixture and colour with the food colouring of your choice. For this cake I used a rose gel food colouring.
7. Add in a spoonful of the cake mixture to each of your baking tins, alternating which colour cake batter you use and bring a fork through it to mix the batters together.
8. Make sure the base of your cake tin is covered and put in the oven for 25 minutes, or until it springs back to the touch and a fork comes out clean when put into the centre of the cake. Once cooked, remove from the oven and place on cooling racks to cool before assembly. At this point, turn your oven down to 120°C.
9. To make the jam put the frozen strawberries water and sugar in a pan with the lid on over a medium heat. Once this reaches boiling point turn down slightly and simmer until you reduce the volume of water and are left with a thick syrupy consistency. Set this aside to cool.
10. To make the Italian meringue buttercream, put the granulated sugar and water in a pan and boil. Your mixture should reach about 210°C before you use it in the mixture.
11. When your sugar syrup is almost ready, whip up your egg whites with a pinch of salt until light and foamy. The egg should form soft peaks before you add your syrup.
12. Once the syrup is at the right temperature pour in a steady stream into your whipped eggs, making sure that you continuously whip with a hand held electric whisk whilst you do this. Don't be worried if your mixture deflates slightly at first, you need to keep whipping until the bowl is cool. This should take 5-10 minutes and your meringue will be lovely and shiny at the end of it.
13. Once your meringue has formed stiff peaks add in a teaspoonful of vanilla essence and mix in.
14. Remove a large tablespoonful of this mixture and set aside to make some small meringue kisses for decoration.
15. Now add in your butter one cube at a time and continue to mix with the hand held mixer. Continue adding the butter until all of it is used.
16. Don't panic if your mixture looks like it is curdling, it will combine again so just keep mixing! I have shown you an example of what this might look like in the pictures below.
17. Once your Italian meringue buttercream is ready and has a beautiful, silky consistency, add in the food colouring of your choice. Here I used a rose gel food colouring with a tiny bit of Sky blue to make the pink a little darker.
18. To make the decorations, pipe meringue ‘kisses’ onto some baking parchment and bake in the oven at 120°C for about 20 minutes. I used a fork and some rose food colouring on the inside of my piping bag to add a little colour to my meringues.
19. Melt your white chocolate in the microwave in 10 second intervals. Use a few spoons of this to coat some of your strawberries (wash and dry them first!), and top with a sprinkle of hundreds and thousands. Leave aside to set. The rest of the melted chocolate will be used to top your cake.
20. To assemble, choose your bottom layer of sponge, top with half the strawberry jam and just a spoonful of the Italian meringue buttercream.
21. Repeat this for the middle layer. When you have added the top sponge, coat the entire outside of the cake in buttercream. Leaving just a little in the bowl to pipe on top.
22. Place this in the fridge to firm for 10 mins before using the rest of your white chocolate to create a drip around the top. I also added a few more sprinkles onto this (because why not?!).
23. Set aside to cool.
24. Once the chocolate is firm, pipe the remaining buttercream on top of the cake in your desired pattern.
25. Position the meringue kisses, chocolate coated strawberries and a few fresh, halved strawberries on top to finish with a flourish!
Colour half your cake batter with the food colouring of your choice
Reduce your jam until it is a thick syrup and set aside to cool
The meringue should for stiff peaks once the syrup is added
Remove a little meringue for piping decorations with!
Pipe meringue on baking parchment and bake in the oven to use as decorations
Don't panic!! It will curdle but just keep whisking!
Once finished, you will have a silky smooth buttercream
Coat the entire cake in buttercream
Use the remaining chocolate to coat the top of the cake and drips down the side
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