Making of: Marble Strawberry Cake

Another in-time event. Another cake :) Last weekend we met again. This time our location was the Aachen Ponttor. Actually, this was a preparation for a bigger event, coming in two weeks. Since the 'host's' coat of arms includes oak leaves I included them in the cake decoration.

Well, what you need is:

3 eggs
a pinch of salt
150 g sugar
2 sachets vanilla sugar
125 g flour
25 g corn starch
1 tsp. baking powder
75 g ground almonds
12 leaves white gelatin
750 g strawberries
2 tbsp. lemon juice
400 g single cream
ca. 40 g green fondant

Divide the eggs and beat the whites to a stiff peak, adding the salt, 100 g sugar and one sachet vanilla sugar while beating. Mix in the yolks slowly, but not too long. In another bowl mix flour, corn starch, baking powder and almonds. Fill the mixture onto the egg mixture and fold under, carefully.
Line the bottom of a 26cm springform tin (no greasing!!), fill in the sponge and smooth it with a rubber spatula. Bake the sponge for about 40 minutes on 175°C.

While the sponge cools down, pour some some water over the gelatin and let it soak for some minutes. Meanwhile, add the remaining sugar and vanilla sugar and the lemon juice to the strawberries and puree most of them. Leave about ten for decoration purpose. Melt down the gelatin by heating it slowly. Add it to the strawberry puree and put the mass into the fridge.
Beat half the single cream until stiff. When the strawberry puree begins to gel, fold about 2/3 of it under the whipped cream. Do not mix too much, so that you get a marble pattern.

Cut the sponge in half, horizontally. Put one half into a springform, to form the base of your cake. Fill in the marble cream and top with the other half of your sponge. Pour the remaining third of the strawberry puree onto it and put the cake into the fridge until set (at least four hours!). I left it in the fridge over night.

Then, whip the remaining single cream until stiff. Slide a thin knife carefully between the cake and the edge of the form and remove the springform. Spread half the whipped cream onto the edge of the cake. Fill the remaining cream into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe a small wavy border onto the edge of the top. Have a look at the pictures, this will make it easier :)

Now, take the strawberries you have left for decoration purpose and cut them into fine slices. Press those slices gently against the cake border.

Finally, roll out some green fondant, dusted with a tiny amount of icing sugar, and cut out seven oak leaves with a cookie cutter. The fondant will remain very soft, or maybe become even soggy, depending on how long you leave it on the puree, so you better put them onto the cake as close to serving as possible.

Well, in the end I was told by several people that this was the first cake made by me of which you could eat more than one slice without dying of feeling stuffed :)