Indulgent & Delicious Strawberry Bavarian Cream Cake … for my daughter!

Deeba @ PAB

14 years ago

“When you make a cake, you truly express your desire to please the people you love, and show them how much you care.”

Roland Meisner

Time flies, and how! It’s was the daughter’s 14th birthday and as busy as every 2nd January has been since the day she was born. We barely recover from the kids New Year eve excitement, and there it is, her big day staring us in the face. What cake are you making for me she religiously asks the day before? This year the situation was different. There was a huge power grid failure and our entire region was gripped with dense fog. My cake plans underwent many changes as time progressed. No power meant that filling couldn’t be whipped, and neither could frosting. Thankfully I had baked the sponge a day before!

This year I was spoilt for choice since I had 2 boxes of delicious strawberries on hand as they are just showing up in the market. Also have been fortunate enough to receive many new baking books I was itching to try out, and exciting dessert ideas off blogs and web sites. This is what the holiday season does to you; spoils you with so much visible eye candy, that you want to try everything at once. Strawberries in the market doesn’t seem to make it simpler, just widens the horizon!

I grabbed 2 books of my shelf for inspiration. One the Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Cakes’, and the other Roland Meisner’s ‘Basic to Beautiful Cakes’. The latter is a beautiful cake decoration book that I won at a cake decoration competition run by Lis and Ivonne at the Daring Kitchen for this Cinnamon Buttercream Autmn Cake. Both books are bursting with great cake ideas, and I eventually zeroed on the second one. Basic to Beautiful Cakes shows how to create desserts that can be beautifully embellished to serve any occasion by using a small set of foolproof cake recipes.

Roland Mesnier is a French-American Pastry chef and culinary writer. Basic to Beautiful Cakes is a book by this legendary White House pastry chef, and Lauren Chattman. It is inspirational in every way, and the narrative before each recipe is very engaging. The author adds a little trivia about who and why he made that particular cake for, and in some cases the reactions to it! It’s lovely!!

The book includes an enviable array of fruit cakes, dairy and wheat free cakes, nut, chocolate and coffee cakes amongst still many others! There is also a section dedicated to decoration basics, and basic filling, frosting,glazes and syrups etc, as also one on basic recipes at the very end which spans everything from pastry creams, whipped creams, sauces, to fillings.

I saw the Summertime Strawberry Cake in his book (yes I am aware this is the peak of winter, LOL), and that inspired my Bavarian cream cake. My cake is similar in essence and would have made the base cake from the book, had it not been for the added 1 stick of butter. Decided to fall back on my Swiss roll cake recipe, an airy and light fatless option, I wasn’t sure it would work well as a cake base, but it certainly did.

For the filling I decided on a Bavarian cream for many reasons. Primarily because of the power failure. Also because the kids loved it when I had made it earlier from Tartlettes for this Peaches and Cream Cake, and finally, because I needed to collect whites for making macarons for MacTweets! Three birds with one stone …yes!

The Bavarian cream is inspired by this recipe by Michale Symon on Food Network. Not sure if it was supposed to be firmer, but worked fine for me even though I used 25% low fat cream. I think you could decrease the gelatin by a 1/4 tbsp if you use whipping cream.

I did initially want to leave the strawberries peeking out of the sides of the cake, but was inspired by Ria‘s post to try making a different border. I had already topped the cake with a dark chocolate ganache, as we can’t have a birthday cake sans chocolate, so I tried a white chocolate piped border. The white chocolate we get here doesn’t melt as easily and smoothly as the dark chocolate, so it wasn’t a very easy task. I managed something anyway, and here’s what it looks like…

To make a border for the cake, measure the height of the border that you would like, and the circumference of the cake. Cut our parchment paper to this measure and squiggle patterns or doodle with melted chocolate on it. (If you are unsure, keep a pattern under the parchment and trace out with melted chocolate). Wait for it to almost set, where the paper is still flexible and the chocolate is not set hard. Wrap it around the cake and press gently to the frosted sides so that the pattern sticks to the sides. Mine didn’t hold a 100% because I didn’t frost the sides, but it was fine anyway. Gently peel off the parchment.

Strawberry Bavarian Cream Cake
Inspired by Summertime Strawberry Cake by Roland Meisner
Sponge
6 eggs, separated
1 cup flour
1 cup vanilla sugar, divided into 2 bowls
Method:
Separate the yolks and whites.

With clean beaters, whip the whites with 1/2 cup sugar until firm. Keep aside

Add the remaining sugar to the yolks and beat until tripled in volume or all the sugar has dissolved and the yolks are pale and creamy, about 8-10 minutes

Now add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and fold in gently so as not to release any beaten in air. Sift in half the flour and fold in gently, followed by 1/3 beaten whites, then remaining flour, and finally remaining beaten whites. Gently turn into prepared tin, and bake at 180C for 25-30 minutes until a tester comes out clean.

Remove from tin immediately, peel off parchment and cool completely on rack.

Filling

as adapted from this recipe here

4 egg yolks

1/3 cup vanilla sugar

1 vanilla bean

1/2 cup + 3 tbsps milk

1 1/4 tbsps gelatin (reduce to 1 tbsp if you use high fat cream)

400m cream (25% fat)

400gms strawberries (Reserve some for garnishing)
Method:
Whisk the egg yolks with a balloon whisk with 1/3 cup of vanilla sugar until smooth.

Simmer 1/2 cup of milk and 200ml cream with 1 scraped vanilla bean, bean included. Turn off heat and allow to infuse for 30 minutes.

Bloom gelatin in 3 tbsps of cold milk

Put the pan back on simmer. Once the milk mixture comes to a boil, take it off the heat and whisk into the yolk mix, somewhat like in French pastry cream.

Return to a heavy bottom pan, and place on medium heat until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon, stirring constantly.

Take off and whisk in bloomed gelatin. Strain and leave to cool. (You can quicken the cooling by stirring the bowl held over a bowl of ice.)

Once it is completely cooled, whip 200ml of cream with 1-2 tbsps of Castor sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla extract, and fold it into the custard gently but thoroughly. You will notice the Bavarian thickening.

While the custard is cooling, slice the sponge into two, and gently paint with some sugar syrup with a little lime juice added. (like in this pineapple sponge here, note at the bottom). This moistens the sponge a bit.

Place the lower layer on your serving platter within a cake/dessert ring. Arrange chopped strawberriesand top with the cooled Bavarian cream. Place the top layer over it, and gently push over topping to level it. Cling wrap entire thing, and chill for 8 hours, preferably overnight for the Bavarian to set.

Unmold gently.

Topping:

Make a dark chocolate ganache with 150gms dark chocolate and 2-3 tbsps cream. I eyeball the amounts. We just need enough for the top.

Whisk with a spoon till smooth and shiny. Leave to cool. It will thicken as it cools.
Spread over the top layer, allowing some to drizzle over the sides. Use it before it becomes too firm or it will be difficult to spread smoothly.