Strawberry Cream Cake

The summer fruits have been calling to me.  I have centered my baking around summer fruits these days.  This is a Strawberry Cream Cake from Cook's Illustrated.  Looking forward to more baking with summer fruits.

Fun Food Fridays

Strawberry Shortcakes

I wanted to do something with strawberries today because they looked and smelled so good at the farmers market. Jacob helped me pick a shortcake recipe and here is what we did.



For the vanilla cream:

• 1/2 cup milk



• 1/2 cup heavy cream



• 1 vanilla bean or vanilla extract to taste (I used 2 tsp)



• 1/4 cup sugar



• 4 egg yolks

Pour the milk and heavy cream into a sauce pot and scape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the sauce pot. Add half the sugar (2 T) and bring to a simmer. In a small bowl whisk together the egg yolks and remaining sugar. Temper the eggs by adding a small amount of the heated milk mixture to the bowl, whisking constantly. Pour the egg mixture into the pot of milk, stirring constantly. Do not boil or you will have scrambled eggs. The mixture should begin to thicken so that it coats the back of the spoon. Remove from heat add vanilla extract if using and allow to cool. Refrigerate until cool and ready to use.

For the macerated strawberries I used one basket of strawberries and 2 T of sugar. I used store bought sponge cake.

To assemble: I put some sponge cake on the bottom, scoop of macerated strawberries, vanilla cream, then another layer of sponge cake, macerated strawberries, vanilla cream and topped it with a little whipped cream.