The Ultimate Strawberry Cake - Strawberry Cake version 5.0

The Tea Time Treat of June is hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked (being the hostess of the virtual tea table), and she selected layer cakes as the theme. 

I have decided to bend the theme a little bit, so it is fitting to my fascination of strawberry cakes !! I love strawberry cakes, and they will from time to time tempt me, if I pass them at a bakery stall, even though that I find the bakers are demanding a too high price for them, 17 DKK for a small cake (single serving) or 60-70 DKK for the bigger version (cake for 4-6 persons).

Strawberry cakes are for me equal to a wonderful Danish Summer with blue heaven, green trees, great tasting strawberries and plenty of wonderful daylight between 4 AM and 11 PM.

So my version of a layer cake is The Ultimate Strawberry Cake, which consist of the following six layers:

1. layer - Shortcrust pastry
2. layer - Mazarin cake
3. layer - dark chocolate coating
4. layer - vanilla cake cream 
5. layer - fresh strawberries
6. layer - elderflower cordial glazing

Finally I have created  The Ultimate Strawberry Cake !!!! after two years of hard work, both baking and eating :-) As the finishing touch I have been working with glazing of the final cake using the recipe from Strawberry cake version 4.0. A work colleague of mine suggested, that I should use a water spray for applying the glazing layer. I applied one layer, but after visual evaluation spraying four-five times would be highly recommended, so the glazing becomes more thicker and therefore more visual. Another option would be to use a brush for applying the glazing.

The Tea Time Table is a monthly blogging event managed  Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked.

The Ultimate Strawberry cake -  version 5.0: - 1 big cake or 12 small cakes

Shortcrust pastry:

• 240 g (cake) flour
• 160 g butter
• 40 g egg
• 60 g icing sugar

Mazarin cake:

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

Vanilla cake cream:

•         2egg yolks
•          30 g sugar
•          250 g milk
•          1 vanilla pods
•          10 g maize starch (Maizena)
•     100-150 g dairy whipping cream, 35-38% fat´

Elderflower cordial glazing:

• 75 g elderflower cordial
• 75 g water
• 1 leaf of gelatine

1. Knead all the shortcrust pastry ingredients together.
2. Place the shortcrust pastry cold in the refrigerator for ½-1 hours
3. Meanwhile make the mazarin cake mass
4. Stir/whip the sugar and grated marzipan together until homogeneous mass.
5. Add the soft butter in the sugar-marzipan mass until the mass is homogeneous again.
6. Stir the egg, one by one, into the mass until it is homogeneous again.
7. Add  the flour at the very end.
8. Do  not stir the cake mass too much, as this can result in, that the cake is boiling over during baking.
9. Heat the oven (conventional) to 225'C.
10. Roll the shortcrust pastry dough out to a height of 4-5 mm.
11. Cut the dough out in circle size with a diameter of 9 cm. And cover muffin forms with a diameter of 7 cm with this dough.
12. Afterwards fill the cake mass into the shortcrust pastry.
13. Bake the cake at 225'C for 10-15 minutes.
14. Cool the cake down. 
15. Melt the chocolate (I use the microwave oven for this purpose).
16. Cover the surface of the cake with melted chocolate.
17. Let the chocolate firm up.
18. Remove the vanilla corns from the vanilla pods.
19. Add the vanilla pods, vanilla corns and milk into a cooking pot and gentle heat up the milk to the boiling point
20. Whip the egg yolks, sugar and maize starch together.
21. Remove the vanilla pods from the hot milk.
22. Pour the hot milk into the egg yolk-sugar mass, while you whip.
23. Afterwards add the entire mix back into the cooking pot.
24. Continue to whip this mass, while it is heated up and thereby thickens. Whip and heat until the mass is thick.
25. Cool down the mass.
26. Stir the cold mass and lightly whipped dairy cream together into a homogeneous mass.
27. Store the vanilla cake cream for minimum 4 hours.
28. Take the cake of the form and transfer it on to a plate.
29. Place the vanilla cake cream on top on the cake.
30. Decorate with fresh strawberries cut into half. And place the cake cold in the refrigerator.
31. Place the leaf of gelatine in a bowl of water for 5 minutes.
32. Meanwhile mix the elderflower cordial and water together in a small cooking pot.
33. After 5 minutes remove the gelatine leaf from the bowl of water and add it into the elderflower cordial-water mix. Gently heat up the elderflower cordial mix, until the gelatine leaf is melt, stir from time to time.
34. Cool down the entire elderflower cordial-water-gelatine mix, apply it on top of the strawberries, using either a water spray (spray 4-5 times) or a brunch.
35. Let the cake stand for minimum 30 minutes in the refrigerator before eating the cake.
36. Enjoy :-)