Strawberry Cream Cake with Homemade Sponge
The strawberry and whipped cream cake of spring celebrations: a homemade four-egg sponge, a light syrup soak, strawberries in the filling and on top.
Two points decide the whole thing. The sponge is beaten to the ribbon — lift the whisk and the mixture writes on itself without dissolving. That is where all the lift comes from, because there is no baking powder here. And the whipped cream has to be firm enough to hold, without going one turn too far and splitting toward butter.
The flour goes in folded, never beaten: beating it in undoes the air you just spent ten minutes building.
Ingredients
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- 120 g sugar
- 120 g all-purpose flour (plain flour), sifted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 750 g strawberries
- 500 ml heavy cream (double cream), well chilled
- 80 g powdered sugar (icing sugar)
- 100 ml water and 50 g sugar (for the syrup)
Method
- 1
Beat the eggs with the sugar for about 10 minutes, to the ribbon: when you lift the whisk, the mixture writes on itself without dissolving. Add the vanilla.
- 2
Fold in the sifted flour in three additions, with a lifting motion from the bottom up. Do not beat — you would lose the air you just built.
- 3
Pour into a buttered and floured 22 cm pan. Bake at 180 °C for 30-35 minutes without opening the oven; it is done when a skewer comes out clean.
- 4
Turn it out onto a rack and let it cool completely. Meanwhile, boil the syrup water with its sugar for 2 minutes and let it cool to lukewarm.
- 5
Whip the well-chilled cream with the powdered sugar to firm peaks, taking care not to go too far — past that point it splits and heads toward butter.
- 6
Cut the sponge horizontally into two disks. Brush the bottom one with half the syrup, spread with cream and a generous layer of sliced strawberries.
- 7
Put the second disk on top, brush with the rest of the syrup and cover the whole cake with whipped cream. Decorate with whole or halved strawberries.
- 8
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving: the cream settles and the cake cuts cleanly.
More Recipes with Strawberries
Peak season depends on where you are — late spring to early summer in the northern hemisphere, spring in the southern one — but you will find them in the shops most of the year. They are at their best in cakes, shakes and homemade jam. Recetop tip: buy them in season, wash and dry them well, hull them and freeze them in zip bags; that way you always have a handful ready for smoothies.
