Strawberry Shortcake - The Konichiwa Way

Mini Strawberry Shortcake

I have always wanted to try whipped cream frosting, but it was so daunting... The weather in Singapore just made it so much easier for the whipped cream to melt due to the heat. Plus it is harder to ensure I do not over whip the cream else I can start producing my own butter. But I so love the whipped cream, not too sweet and with a tinge of dairy flavour.. Plus the texture is so much lighter than your average buttercream..

So with my anniversary with Sunshine round the corner, I asked him if we could bake a cake together to celebrate our anniversary.







Strawberry Shortcake recipe (adapted from Cooking with Dog)
For the cake base (2x 9" cake pans)
180g of cake flour
300g of egg
200g of sugar
30g butter, melted
2 Tablespoon of milk

For the Soaking Syrup
1 Tablespoon of Rum
2 Tablespoon of Sugar
3 Tablespoon of Hot Water

For the Whipped Cream Frosting
600ml of whipping cream
4 1/2 Tablespoon of sugar

10 - 14 strawberries
Icing Sugar


Directions:
To bake the cake:
Preheat oven to 160C. Line 2 9" cake pans with parchment paper and oil them. Set aside.
Get ready a big bowl of hot water. Set aside.
Beat egg with sugar until combined (~30s). Place the mixing bowl into the hot water and continue beating the egg at high speed. (I used a hand mixer and it is difficult to heat up the bowl using stand mixer. Once the egg mixture is warm when placing a finger into the mixture to test, remove the mixing bowl from the hot water bat. Continue to mix until the mixture turns very pale and at least doubled to trippled in volume.
Sift the cake flour into the mixture. Gently fold the batter, using a spatula, till combined. Add in the melted butter and milk. Continue to fold the mixture till the batter becomes glossy.
Pour the mixture evenly to the 2 cake pan. (I used a weighing scale just to be accurate)
Bake the cake for 16-20 min or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it rest for 5 min and turn the cake pan upside down to the cooling rack. Let the cakes cool completely.

To make the soaking syrup:
Add all the ingredients together and stir till the sugar completely dissolved. Set aside.

To make the whipped cream
Get ready a large bowl of ice water, less than half filled. In another medium size metal bowl, combine the whipping cream and the sugar. Place the medium size bowl into the ice water. Using a balloon whisk, whisk the whipping cream until the cream reached slightly before it reaches hard peaks.  Put the cream into the fridge until ready to assemble.

To Assemble:
Cut the strawberries into thin slices, Set aside.
Take the cake out of the pan, set the cake on the cake stand. Apply a layer of soaking syrup on the cake, glaze a layer of whipping cream before placing the sliced strawberries in a single layer. Apply another generous coating of whipped cream, make sure it covers the strawberries.

Coat the soaking syrup on both side of the second cake. I did it by coating one side, place it on top of the whipped cream and coat the top side with soaking syrup.
To complete the look, cover the whole cake with the whipped cream and decorate the cake with nice looking whole strawberries and some icing sugar to give it a dreamy look.

9inch cake.... 

See how fluffy the cake is. 

Sunshine and I was so oily from all the cooking and baking. So only have 2 teddies to replace us.. hahaha..
The Sake was nice and complemented the cake quite well.