Strawberry cake version 2.0

I have a dream - a dream about making my very own ultimate/perfect strawberry cake, as I find the price on this type of cake at the bakers to be highly over-priced !!! I am approaching this dream by taking one small step followed by another one small step, and this will slowly make my dream come true. Or by using the words of another:  "one small step for me, one giant leap for strawberry cake" !!!

So I am starting from the very bottom of the cake, so starting on getting the cake layer perfect. Last year I tested one suggestion of cake layer, which was good, but not perfect. This time I have talking to a professional baker a work, who gave me the following suggestion for the cake layer. And this Mazarin cake just taste great, perfect, lovely - so I will use this recipe for my coming work on creating the ultimate strawberry cake.


It turned out to be very difficult for me get the Mazarin cake out of my silicone form into one piece. However, this is not visible to see after you have place the vanilla cake cream on top of the Mazarin cake. Next time I will make a shortcrust pastry dough for filling the Mazarin cake dough into before baking it.


I used a "plain" vanilla cake cream made from cold-soluble powder mix. However, I reduced the amount of milk added, as I whipped some dairy whipping cream, which I mixed together after the maturation of the vanilla cake cream. Making my own vanilla cake cream will come later on as another small step on my road to creating the perfect strawberry cake.


As my rowing friends could not eat the entire cake, I took the rest of the cake with me to work, where it disappeared with 5 minutes during the afternoon coffee/tea break. I take this a sign, that this cake tasted very, very good indeed.


Mazarin cake:

• 200 g sugar
• 200 g marzipan - grated 
• 200 g butter - room temperature
• 200 g egg - room temperature
• 60 g (cake) flour
• 50-100 g dark chocolate

1. Heat the oven (conventional) to 200'C.
2. Stir/whip the sugar and grated marzipan together until homogeneous mass.
3. Add the soft butter in the sugar-marzipan mass until the mass is homogeneous again.
4. Stir the egg, one by one, into the mass until it is homogeneous again.
5. Add the flour at the very end.
6. Do not stir the cake mass too much, as this can result in, that the cake is boiling over during baking.
7. Fill the cake mass into an oiled round form of approx 28 cm in diameter.
8. Bake the cake at 200'C for 20-25 minutes.
9. Cool the cake down. 
10. Melt the chocolate (I use the microwave oven for this purpose).
11. Cover the surface of the cake with melted chocolate.
12. Let the chocolate firm up.
13. Take the cake of the form and transfer it on to a plate.
14. Place the vanilla cake cream on top on the cake.
15. Decorate with fresh strawberries cut into half.
16. Enjoy :-)

Strawberry cake ready to be eaten by me