...Strawberry sponge cake

Baking this cake is like bringing alittle sunshine into your kitchen.  The strawberries,whipped cream on this light and airy sponge cake are hard to resist.  This recipe is adapted from "Cook with Jamie".  He uses jam and fresh berries (blueberries, blackberries and raspberries), however, I enjoy making my own strawberry compote and controlling the amount of sugar in the filling.




Ingredients
Sponge:
-1 cup unsalted butter
-3/4 cup sugar
-4 eggs
-Zest of 1 lemon
-2 cups flour
-3 tsp of baking powder
-1 tsp salt



Filling:
-2 pints of strawberries, sliced  (save a 4-5 whole or halved for decorating the top)
-1/4 cup sugar
-2 tbsp of lemon juice
-1 cup heavy cream


Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Grease two cake pans (8" or 9") with butter and line bottom with wax paper.  Lightly flour sides of the cake pans.

3. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.  Then add one egg at a time and make sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next.

4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.  Add this mixture to the egg mixture and fold until incorporated.

5.  Split batter between the two cake pans, using a spatula to spread out the batter so it is somewhat level in the pan.

6.  Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden.  Once cool, remove from cake pans and carefully remove wax paper.

7.  While the sponge is baking, you can put together the compote by putting strawberries, lemon juice and sugar in a sauce pan.  Reserve a few strawberries to decorate the cake.  Cook over medium heat until the strawberries are softened and the liquids have thickened.  You can choose to add more sugar or lemon juice to adjust the sweetness and thickness of the syrup.

8.  Whip the cream until you have stiff peaks.  Spread as much of the compote and whip cream on top of one sponge as you wish.  You may choose to slice off part of the sponge to make it flatter, but I don't think it is necessary unless you are going for perfection.



9.  Add the second sponge on top and spread some whipped cream on top.  Decorate with the whole and halved strawberries.  I love the homemade look of this cake.

Whipped cream goodness- alittle messy but absolutely delicious
Enjoy!

4 comments:

  1. One of my dear friends, who is a June Birthday Gal, would love this!

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  2. I'm happy you found this recipe useful!

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  3. That looks sloppy & unappeiling. You should have baked 1 sponge instead of 2, and used a cake leveler so that the whipcream and strawberries would be exactly in the middle; instead of being squished inbetween the cakes.Of course it would still ooze out but it would have been less because the inside of the cake is softer. Great idea just needs some tweaking.

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  4. Anonymous,
    Thank you for your feedback. I realize the way the cake was put together may not appeal to everyone. Being that I was not going for perfection and realizing that the whipcream did in fact ooze everywhere was something I did try to improve on in my later attempts (this was my first). I did mention in my steps that one could level off the sponges, I chose not to at the time.
    The cake itself did taste quite good, let me know what you think of the recipe itself if you ever decide to make it.

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