This month it's layered cakes in the office. As it's my final round before bowing out from the remainder of the competition I thought I should put a little extra effort in. I wanted something summery and decided to base my concoction on a Frazier cake. I was concerned that the two layers may have been insufficient so twisted the traditional structure somewhat, ending with three layers of cake topped by Frazier and then Italian meringue.
Joe's Strawberry Layered Cake:
For the sponge:
4 Egg Sponge Mix (Vanilla)
100g Raspberries, puréed
2 tbsp Cocoa Powder
For the creme patisserie:
4 Egg Yolks
70g Cornflower
600ml Gold Top Milk
1 Vanilla Pod Equivalent (paste / powder / extract)
To Assemble:
4 Egg White Italian Meringue Mix
1/3 jar Lemon Curd
500g Strawberries (minimum, I used more to pick even sized ones at the edge)
Sieve the raspberry purée into a bowl.
Split the sponge mixture three ways, putting one third in a prepared 8 1/2" tin, one third in with the raspberries and ...
... one third in with the cocoa powder.
Spread the mixtures into tins
and bake for 15-20 minutes at 180C.
Whilst they are baking make the crème patisserie. Add the egg yolks to the sugar and cornflower and mix into a paste.
Heat the milk with the vanilla before adding bit at a time to the egg mix. Put the whole mixture back in the pan and heat gently until thickened. Spoon into piping bags and refrigerate.
Whilst everything is cooling line your tin with acetate.
Once cool, layer the cakes with lemon curd in between. I went chocolate, raspberry then vanilla but this is up to you.
Arrange half strawberries up against the acetate, packing them in tightly. Pipe the cooled crème patisserie in between the strawberries firmly before adding a spiral to protect the cake from the remaining strawberries.
Pile in the rest of the strawberries, chopped roughly into quarters.
Cover with the remaining crème patisserie. You can see I panicked that mine was too runny and now it is too thick! Trim the acetate to a sensible height (about 1-2cm above the crème pat.).
Pipe in the Italian meringue before applying a blowtorch.
Chill before serving.