use real butter

I had an extra vanilla chiffon cake from class and decided I’d use it for dessert this weekend when we had friends over for dinner. I normally like to work with chocolate despite my indifference toward it, but this time I wanted to try something orthogonal… something strawberry.

Originally I wanted to layer the cake with pastry cream and then frost in strawberry buttercream, but pastry cream can misbehave if it gets warm. I began the previous night washing the strawberries and setting them out to dry completely. First I wanted to do some garnishes, just for fun.

striped strawberries for garnish

Next I froze some of the larger and more ripe fruits to bust the cell walls. I then let them thaw and puréed the whole thing. I made a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream and incorporated some of the purée. It smelled of fresh strawberries and had a really authentic strawberry flavor.

strawberry buttercream

I decided on a simple syrup flavored with Grand Marnier to soak the vanilla chiffon layers. Buttercream was sandwiched between each slice of cake and then used to crumb coat and eventually frost the entire cake.

brushing grand marnier syrup

good to the last bit

Then I sliced strawberries for the base garnish and topped the cake with the dipped strawberries. I think buttercream is so nice to work with, but this one is particularly amazing. It won rave reviews from people who typically Don’t Like strawberries. This one will go into my keepers notebook.

side view of the final cake

from the top

a tartlet of extra buttercream

June 9th, 2007: 11:53 pm
filed under baking, cake, chocolate, fruit, sweet