Vanilla & Strawberry Shortbread Cake

Last week I made a vanilla bean based cake with fresh strawberries, biscuits and vanilla buttercream filling. It was delicious! I usually prefer chocolatey rich cakes but this is now one of my favourite cakes! It's light, refreshing and moreish - perfect cake for a summer's day!

I made the vanilla cake a day before I assembled it. I cooled and wrapped it with cling film and left in cool counter overnight. I find that this helps with the decorating part because you're not waiting around for cake to cool and also means that you're not in a rush! The cake layers were completely flat which also meant I didn't need to cut cake off it. I used cake strips by Wilton which I now swear by! There's nothing worse than a cake sinking or having to cut off bits when it domes. My main issue it cutting it into even layers which I find difficult! So I would recommend using cake strips if this is an issue for you. Simply soak material into water and wrap it around the cake tin before placing into the oven.

The assembly:

I like using a moving cake stand as it makes icing so much easier. I prepare everything out before I start assembling the cake. For the different buttercream colours, I use Wilton's gel paste food colouring. You don't need to use much of it to make pastel colours (I like using a toothpick for this).

1. Place a bit of buttercream on the stand to stick the first cake layer onto the stand.

2. Use a palette knife (or piping bag) to spread even layer of buttercream. Place strawberry jam on top of buttercream and add pipe buttercream around jam to create a barrier.

3. Place second layer of cake and place buttercream.

4. Add sliced strawberries and crumbled shortbread biscuits. Create barrier again with buttercream icing.

5. Push down lightly on layers to seal.

6. Crumb coat with buttercream.

7. Decorate! Use! Wilton tip 1M to make rose designs and 2D tip for stars. I added homemade salted caramel as a drip (but make sure they're thin drips or else it will turn out like mine!)

The recipe:

I used Preppy Kitchen's vanilla cake recipe but tweaked it slightly. This recipe makes 3x 8inch cake tins:

Vanilla Cake:

• 426g plain flour

• 400g caster sugar

• 2g baking soda

• 9g baking powder

• 5g salt

• 342g unsalted butter, room temp

• 2tablespoons vanilla paste

• 5 large eggs

• 140ml sour cream, room temp

• 226ml whole milk, room temp

Buttercream:

• 100g slightly salted butter (lurpak)

• 200g unsalted butter

• 650g icing sugar

• 2-4 tablespoon of milk/cream

• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

Instructions:

• Butter and flour 3x 8inch cake tins. Place soaked cake strips around the outside of tin.

• Sift the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the sour cream, milk, butter, egg and vanilla together. 

• Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Divide the mixture evenly into the cake pans. (No butter-sugar creaming for this recipe!!)

• Bake for 30 -35 minutes or until cakes looks set and springy (edges will start pulling away from tin)

• Let the layers cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then invert each layer out onto a cooling rack and cool for an hour.

• Decorate only once cool or else icing will melt!

Tips & Tricks

• Press down after you fill each layer. I did not press down firmly enough and some filling leaked after a few hours. Make sure barrier is enough between filling and buttercream.

• Don't over-mix!! The reason why this recipe is so moist and fluffy is because it does not activate the gluten in flour (which causes cake to shrink down after baking and become dense).

• Use vanilla paste or high quality vanilla extract.

• You will see little clumps of butter after you mix the wet ingredients - but don't worry!! This will go away once you place the dry ingredients in.

• If you're doing a drip, make sure the drips aren't too thick - you can do this by placing caramel or ganache into closed piping bag and cutting off a very small bit off to let the filling run through. It will look much neater this way.

• Use local strawberries - I'm so lucky to have the best strawberries on earth (British strawberries are superior to any other strawberries ok!).

There you have it - my favourite fresh strawberry and vanilla cake! It's quite straight forward to make because you just mix the wet and dry ingredients separately before adding it slowly together. If you do make this I hope you enjoy!!

That's all for now,

Denise