Fraisier

Finally. I have finally come to bake this cake. For those who have watched the last series of the Great British Bake Off you should be more than familiar with this as it was one of the technical challenges. Fraisier is basically a classic French strawberry cake with a distinctive pattern on the sides created using halved strawberries.

Unfortunately in this attempt I miscalculated the amount gelatine needed to set the cream so it didn't turn out very well. Still tasted good though.

The filling is a white chocolate mousse flavoured with almond extract. I avoided using marzipan as I don't like fondant/marzipan in general. Plus it sort of saves some work as well.

As you can tell it's a birthday cake for a friend of mine from Marseille. She wanted something with strawberries and I couldn't think of anything more strawberry-y than this cake.

It really would've looked a lot nicer had I used more gelatine in the mousse and let it have more time to set (the fact that I woke up at 12 noon today really didn't help).

Would I make it again? Absolutely. Did I mention I should use more gelatine next time?

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Lunch Party

This week is the much needed Easter break for me. The last term had been so hectic to the point that I literally couldn't find time to bake. Not surprisingly I was badly hit by my rebound baking tendency when term finally ended. I spent the first two days last weekend baking macarons, about 50 of them, that's 100 macaron shells. I did however manage to squeeze in a teeny bit of revision which I was extremely proud of. Anyway the short Easter break has culminated in the lunch party that I've just hosted today. I invited two of my friends and their parents. The menu was:

Starter: Salmon and Dill Quiche Lorraine
Main: Beef Rendang Curry served with home made crusty bread
Dessert: Double Chocolate Mousse with Bergamot

Overall, great company and food went down well. I was particularly happy with how my mousse turned out.