Strawberries and Cream

This week I was asked to make a victoria sponge cake for a birthday girl. She doesn't like icing so we needed to think of some way of making it special for her, so I suggested strawberries and cream. This is the first time I've used cream in this way so it was a new challenge for me, along with the fact that everything in my kitchen is currently packed away and so I had very limited tools. 

After borrowing a mixer and tin from my mum, I made a 8inch vanilla sponge cake. I filled this is with raspberry jam and whipped cream. 

Filled Cake

To make the whipped cream I added a little icing sugar to double cream and whipped it all up. This just sweetened the cream slightly to give it a better flavour. 

Sweetened Cream

I coated the cake in cream and smooth it all over, like I would for butter cream, using hot utensils. 

I piped some little swirls on the top to accent the edge of the cake. 

I wanted to use jam to create a message on the centre of the cake, however, after 2 attempts this wasn't really working so I had to hide the surface with strawberry slices. This meant I wasn't able to put a message on the cake but the cake looked good in the end. 

I had a few issues with the transportation, again because everything is packed, but managed to get it there in one piece and apparently the birthday girl really liked it. 

Strawberries

Finished Cake

For the time and equipment restraints I was pleased with the cake, especially considering it was my first time working with cream. This is something that was fairly quick and simple to make, something I could easily do again and the ingredients didn't cost as much as there was no icing there.