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Nope. This month’s Daring Bakers’ challenge is not about Kelsey Grammer but a wonderfully light, divine cake called fraisier (two i’s, no tossed salad). With gorgeous, airy chiffon sponge filled with fresh strawberries and a dreamy, creamy pastry cream, it’s the perfect cake to bring out as a light dessert. This month’s challenge was hosted by Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes. While a labour intensive cake to make, Jana says this cake is worth the effort and it sure is :)

I was very enthusiastic and excited about this challenge as I sadly had to miss out on the Baklava challenge last month due to our extended US holiday. Unfortunately I was doomed by my failure to do a full equipment check before mixing up the chiffon sponge. Just as I was getting ready to mix up the egg whites, I discovered that my only round, appropriately sized spring-form cake tin was missing. I soon remembered an unfortunate cake disaster earlier in the year which rendered that cake pan way beyond help. I only had my chiffon cake tin to use! Surely we can make this with a hole in the middle?

Baking the chiffon sponge wasn’t hard given I went through a huge phase of baking it some time ago (see Brown Sugar & Cinnmon Chiffon Cake) and I was even able to split the cake into two layers without incident. The pastry cream shouldn’t have been too hard either given I’ve used the trusty Thermomix to make batches up for other recipes but lack of concentration resulted in my first batch becoming lumpy with not quite dissolved gelatine and the addition of butter too late in the piece. I took a deep breath and had more success with my second batch. Not as firm as I would have liked (I used a new brand of cream which didn’t like being whipped…) but it was still useable.

I was hoping to be very creative with this challenge but other than using some rum in my chiffon cake mix and making a rum syrup, the lack of really nice fruit in the shops at the moment didn’t help. I found some reasonably nice strawberries and golden kiwi fruit to use. In the end I was happy to keep things simple just so I’d at least have something to post!

To top off my Daring Bakers fail, I misread the recipe and didn’t leave enough pastry cream to cover the top sponge layer. My only solution was to dust it with icing sugar :( I was actually excited about putting the marzipan layer on but on opening my package, I discovered that I bought the wrong type. My family isn’t big on marzipan so it was perhaps just as well.

Lack of presentation aside, the cake was delicious. Very light and reminiscent of the Japanese-style strawberry shortcakes that I adored as a child. Once the weather gets warmer here in Perth and we’re once again blessed with nicer fruit, I’ll make this cake again. Just remind me to buy a new spring-form pan before then please?

2 Comments for this entry

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  Megan

  July 28th, 2011 on 1:59 pm

  I have a deep unnerving love for chiffon cakes.. coupled with tasty cream and strawberries and alcohol i am sure it was a winning cake. Besidse the texture looks perfect!
  Not to mention, what a stunning cakeplate
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  Monica

  August 1st, 2011 on 3:40 pm

  With some practice I will make this again and make it look really purty! :) Thanks! x

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