Strawberry Shortcake

I wanted to make a cake for my sister's birthday, and the week preceding had asked her "What kind of cake would you like?" and she quickly said "fruit cake. Like the fruit paradise cake. Lots of fruits on top."

Ok - challenged accepted.

I've never really baked a cake-cake before - not one that is decorated with cream or any frosting, or any fruits or whatever, so this was really quite a steep challenge.

Firstly, I went to look for a recipe, and landed upon this:

I had made a swiss roll previously, and the techniques are pretty similar in terms of beating the egg whites and folding it into the yolk+cake mixture, so I was quite confident I could do this. But the greatest challenge was really whipping the double/heavy cream. 

Firstly, double cream has to be of 36% fat and above. The cream you get at supermarkets is at most 35% which whips, but doesn't hold very well. Ming Guang kindly drove me to Phoon Huat where they sold all sorts of milk with all sorts of fat content, and I got mine at 38%. The higher the fat content, the sturdier your cream. 

On the other hand, over whipping is also a real possibility, which renders your cream into butter, and useless. So it was a real balancing act. I only have a stand mixer at this point, and all the videos I watched used a hand mixer. I think it made a difference. My cream although sturdy wasn't very smooth or creamy, it felt almost a little watery, and didn't look good piping, but that could have just been my poor technique. 

Ok, back to the cake. 

So, I initially made that cake above, but for some reason it came out quite short, and I personally thought quite impossible to make into 3 slices for the 3 layered cake. I had previously looked at this other video, and quickly made this one instead. 

The video is very cutesy and pretty, which made it doubt how good it actually is, but it surprisingly was indeed very good! My cake came out super fluffy and tall, and was great for slicing into 3 (although this video shows two). The only challenge was making glucose (???) which I was like, where the heck am I going to find that?? And I really only needed that little bit to make this cake, so I made my own on the go. If you face this same issue, just mix 2 parts sugar, 1 part water, pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds intervals until you get this thick gooey thing. 

I also didn't have the Grand Marnier that they called for, and easily replaced it with Umeshu which was hanging around at the back of my fridge. 

As for caking techniques, since I was so crap at it, I really wanted to look for something easy and simple to follow. I found Kitchen Conundrums to be incredibly helpful:

To be very honest, as I was making and tasting each component, I wasn't very impressed, and didn't have high hopes for this cake. But alas when my sister cut into it and served everyone a slice, I myself let out an "Oh my god" at how delicious it was. How deceiving it had been from the start, but was totally worth it in the end!

Birthday girl with the cake..!

Since I had a spare sponge cake, and loads of other decoration bits to spare as well, I made a second cake and attempted to practice my piping. Not bad for a first attempt? I shared this with friends at a dinner the following day, and it was still just as good, though a tad shorter. 

It is always such a great feeling to know that your efforts have paid off and everyone enjoyed your creation. I always say that cooking is a science, to anyone who thinks less of it.