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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Tutorial: Strawberries 'n Creme Cake!

Long time no baking tutorial! 8) With the holidays just around the corner, I think this one is a good time~ I actually did this one quite a ways back, but never had the patience and time to post it. :P Well, here it is! It's just a simple 2 layered cake with strawberries and creme. Instead of strawberries, you can always opt for other fruits. I usually add in blackberries or blueberries, but because this cake was made within an hour for my cousin's birthday dinner, I was in a HUGE hurry. I was about 20-30 min late, but oh well~ the desert was good! ;)


Gather up your ingredients!

Pre-heat the oven to 330 degrees. I ended up putting mine at 350 degrees because I was running REALLY late. I had to risk drying out the cake or burning it, but it turned out fine! Lucky me :P

I know... a LOT of eggs huh?

Wisk it with an electric mixer for about 5-10 min. It has to be really bubbly! Mine wasn't quite there, but because I was in a hurry, I was out of time. It's VERY important to have the eggs really fluffy and bubbly, because there is no yeast/baking powder involved in this cake. This is what's going to make this cake rise!

Measure up the sugar!

And add it in with the eggs. Continue to mix!

Go ahead and add in your vanilla extract...
and your honey! Mix it very well.

Measure up your flour and prepare a sifter with it.

You can stop mixing after the mixture is very opaque and thick. This picture is nowhere near thick enough, but once again, I was in a hurry.

Now, TURN OFF THE ELECTRIC WISK/MIXER. DON'T USE! This part, we will be mixing it by hand. So prepare a plastic glove. Go ahead and sift some of that flour we just prepared over the top of the mixture. Just enough to cover it. I couldn't take any pictures of this part, because I needed both hands to do this, and I don't really have a third arm to take pictures. Basically, using your hand, fold in the flour, but at the same time, make sure your rub your fingers together through the flour. It has to dissolve completely (this is very important--you can't leave any flour un-dissolved, or you'll have a powdery cake!) Repeat sifting and dissolving until you're completely done with the flour.

Go ahead and melt your butter. But remember, it CAN'T be hot, or it'll cook the eggs in the mixture! Room temperature is the best. Add in a bit of milk for a smoother texture. I like to pop my butter in the microwave (since I keep mine in the fridge) for a couple of seconds, and let it cool. Now, take a handful of the mixture, and put it directly into whatever bowl/cup you melted your butter in. Mix in the butter with the mixture. It'll be really gloppy. Now, take that handful of buttered up mixture and combine by hand back into the rest. We do this, because the oils from the butter will naturally deflate the mixture. If we take a smaller bit, it creates a base, or medium for the butter to stick onto.

Butter the pan. Taking a spatula, pour the mixture into a cake pan. Don't worry, you only need one cake pan.

Now pop it in the oven!

While it's baking, clean up the big mess you've made, and do the dishes! If you wait till the end, it'll be too much to handle! :P After you've done that, wash the strawberries.

And cut off the stems~

Cut them up like this! Chop chop chop...

When your cake is finished, leave it out to cool. To check if it's done, poke it with a skewer, or toothpick (chopsticks work ;D). If it comes out clean from the center of the cake, it's done.

While the cake is cooling, let's make the cream! Just take out your carton of whipping creme. It's in the form of milk--you just have to wisk it up.

You need your electric whisk/mixer for this part. Take the bowl and place it in the sink, since there's going to be a lot of fly-away.

Add in 3-4 tbsp of sugar, and mix it for about 5-8 minutes. Yes, it's going to feel like FOREVER, and you'll start to feel it in your arm... but it'll be all worth it for a great cake! You'll know when it's done when you flip the bowl upside down, and the mixture won't even fall out. Taste it once in awhile to see if you need more sugar. But make sure you don't over mix! If it passes the peak point of firming itself, you'll just turn it back to the milk form (which you can't mix up a second time!)

Your cake should be cooled by now... so go ahead and prepare a large surface. Take a knife, and gently go around the edges of the cake--CAREFUL NOT TO SCRATCH THE PAN!

Tap the botton of the pan a bit, and it should slide right out.

Taking some sort of bread knife, cut the cake into to layers. This is a great trick so that you don't bake two separate cakes to make a two story cake. Plus, you can never finish one! This way, it's more.. realistic? :p

Take another rounded edge knife to cream the cake. (the tools I'm using were specially made for this) Spread some of the cream onto the bottom layer of the cake. A good amount--but not too much! You need to save it for the rest of the cake.

Throw some of the strawberries onto the cream! yum... Put the majority of your fruit in the center, because that's where it tastes the best.

Take a little bit more of the cream, and spread it over the fruit. With whatever is leftover, spread it onto the inside of the top layer. Now, flip the top layer over back onto the cake (so that it looks like the way it did when it first came out of the pan--bottom up!). Completely cover the top and sides with the cream--finish it! Decorate the cake whatever way you'd like. Throw the rest of the fruits on top, or line them up anyway you'd like. Whole strawberries... or get a ziplock, cut a corner, fit your icing stencil, and cream out a cool pattern on it.

I decided to just cut the rest of my strawberries up, and throw 'em into a heart shape. I tried to make a floating trail.. but failed miserably.

Because this was for a party, and I needed to move the cake, I had prepared a cake box from Tous Les Jours (Korean bakery). But because the cake was too big, I had to cut it into a square shape!

I was sort of upset I had to cut off the cake, but... then I looked again--you can see the fruit from the inside layer! It looks absolutely stunning!

The cake was a huge success, from such a small amount of time. It's a great desert, and makes a terrific bday cake! ;) Hope you enjoyed it!

This cake is a secret my mother passed onto me--the cake recipe is actually a recipe for a custard. Normal cake mixture was just too bland for this extraordinary cake. Having the bread a custard adds tons more flavor, and makes it a bit more sweet. But don't worry, it's not the type of cake with frosting on it; it's cream. It won't be overly sweet for adults.

EDIT: Holy Moses, I didn't even write up the ingredients or anything! Jesus Christ. I'll do that asap.
This is my absolute favorite cake. I hope it will become yours too!
Best,
Jinna <3

8 comments:

Stephani Janet said...

waw! I love the cake!
I love strawberry cake sso much!
It looks good! :9

박진아 said...

hehe it is! =)
thanks for stopping by~

Jen said...

looks delicious *_*
I now want to bake that cake!! XD

Anonymous said...

jinna! can you post the ingredients/recipe for this pleaseee :)

박진아 said...

wahhh! sorry I still haven't!
I will soon as I can :)

Claudia said...

can you post the ingredients please?

박진아 said...

yes yes :) I will asap.

Anonymous said...

hey are you ever going to post the recipe?

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