Fraisier: Beautiful French Strawberry Cake

"Fraisier", the French strawberry cake, that contains a lot of the strawberry and cream ^^.  I wish I could make it a long time ago, well, I always fall for the beautiful cake. 
This is my second time on this cake, the first one is too sweet, I have to make some adaptation in the recipe so it becomes mellow.
I think there are some error in the original recipe. The recipe comes from one of my favorite book ....................... , I tried 4 recipes fromthis book by now, this one is the only one that has a problem.
The buttercream in this recipe calls for 1/2 whole egg, and use 100g of sugar, the first time that I made it I just follow it without thinking -*-, the base of the buttercream are liquid but I still try to make it till the end, and end up with super sweet buttercream that lacks the puffiness. The right amount of the egg has to be 1 whole egg, and I'm sure about this when I compare with other recipe. 
And I reduce the sugar in the pastry cream too, because when all of them come into 1 cake the sweetness are over limitation. So at last I come up with the right "Fraisier".
The cake consists of 5 elements, Génoise sponge, crème pâtissière, crème au beurre, strawberry and Italian meringue.  As I like to say, even the cake seen complex the truth is not. Each of the element is easy to make, and can be prepared ahead of time except for cutting the strawberries and making the Italian meringue, you have to do it when you ready to assemble the cake. So don't think that you can't make these, it's a lot easier than you think. You can start making the Génoise sponge, the crème pâtissière, the crème au beurre in 1 day before then assemble them and cover with the meringue the day after, this way you can manage you timetable better,



For the look of the cake, I really believe that the deliciousness start with the eyes, ^^, the loveliness of this cake make people happy even before they eating it. The decoration for this cake is easy, just place the fresh strawberries on top of the cake and you get a cute cake without making an effort ^^.


Finally, please enjoy my Fraisier, and I hope you will love it.


Fraisier(フレジエ) = フランスでイチゴのケーキ

Fraisier (フレジエ)

Makes 15cm cake

Génoise
Make 1 – 18cm
3 ..................................... Eggs
90g ................................. Granulated sugar
90g ................................. Cake flour
10g ................................. Unsalted butter
30cc ................................ Milk

Crème au beurre
90g ................................ Granulated sugar
25g ................................ Water
1 ..................................... Egg
125g ............................... Unsalted butter
......................................... A dash of salt

Crème Pâtissiere

125cc ............................. Milk

........................................ Seed form ¼  Vanilla bean

2 .................................... Egg yolks

20g ................................ Granulated sugar

15g ................................. All purpose flour

10g ................................. Unsalted butter

Simple syrup

50g ................................  sugar 

50cc .................................. water

Kirsch syrup

50g .................................. Simple syrup

20cc ................................. Kirsch 

Meringue Italienne

50g ................................. Egg whites

100g ............................... Sugar

20cc ................................ Water

250g ............................... Strawberries


Make the Génoise:

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Prepare the 18cm cake pan by line the base with the baking paper.

Melt the butter in the microwave.

Pour the milk into the hot melted butter.

Beat the egg and sugar over a bowl of warm water, whisk until the sugar melt.

Beat the egg and sugar mixture until ribbon stage (you can see that you can lift the beater and make the letter 8).

Sift the flour into the egg mixture, fold gently until combine.

Pour the milk and butter mixture into the bowl and fold gently.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

Take of the oven and let  it cool completely before take the cake out of the pan.

Make the Simple syrup:

Put the water and sugar into small saucepan and bring to boil, until all the sugar dissolved, take off the heat and let the syrup cool.

Mix the Kirsch into 50g of the syrup.


Make Crème Pâtissiere:

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk  to boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar, seeds from vanilla bean and all purpose flour together and whisk in a bowl.

2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over low heat).

4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth. Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F,stir in the butter. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled.

Make the Buttercream:

In a sauce pan, put the sugar and water and bring to boil over medium low heat.
When the syrup reaches 100°C, start whisking the egg.

The syrup is ready when it reaches 117°C; pour it over the egg  and continue whisking until cold.

Add salt and beat to combine, then add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. Increase the mixer speed to high for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the butter is fully incorporated.

Make the Italian meringue:

In a sauce pan, put the sugar and water and bring to boil over medium low heat.
When the syrup reaches 100°C, start whisking the egg whites.

The syrup is ready when it reaches 117°C; pour it over the egg whites and continue whisking until cold.

Assemble the Fraisier:

Slice the cake into 1.5 cm layer (you will use only 1 layer, keep the rest for other recipe).

Cut the cake into 12cm round, and place in 15cm cake ring, sprinkle with Kirsch syrup.

Pipe the buttercream around the cake and place the strawberries on the side of the cake.

Pipe the buttercream over the strawberries and use the spatula to smooth the buttercream.

Pipe the Crème Pâtissiere in the center, then place the strawberry slices on top.

Cover the strawberries with buttercream. Refrigerate for 1 hour to firm up the buttercream.

Cover the top of the cake with Italian meringue and decorate with strawberry slices.

Fraisier: Beautiful French Strawberry Cake