Bavarian at the Park

Here's a strawberry bavarian cream cake based on this recipe, which I had originally picked out for my friend Dylan's birthday celebration at the park because of the pretty white chocolate lace. But sometimes things (that are white and chocolate) are expensive at Jon's Marketplace (where I got these strawberries for a buck fifty a carton--also the nicest package of Madras curry powder, complete with recipe booklet), so you accept the fact that if you stuff enough strawberries into a cake, you'll be just fine regardless.


Now, I don't do the whole blooming gelatin thing. I just used a tablespoon of flour to thicken my cream instead, so if you're not okay with that, you can go bloom your gelatin elsewhere. Oh, I'm vegetarian, so if you're thinking about expecting something rich and meaty from my posts... nope.

I hope I remember how I strayed from the original recipe to make this cake, which actually turned out to be tasty.

Here's what you'll need:

For the sponge cake-

6 eggs, separated
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar, with 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract mixed in

For the filling-

4 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar, with a little over 1 tbsp of vanilla extract mixed in

1/2 cup + 3 tbsps milk

1 tbsp all-purpose flour

2 236ml cream (I had one plain, one heavy)

a carton of strawberries

For the topping-

dark chocolate

leftover cream

I should probably mention that my form was bigger than the one intended for this recipe, but I wanted a stumpier cake ..

Separate the yolks and whites.

With a standing mixer, whip the whites with 1/2 cup sugar until you form stiff peaks. Transfer (gently) to a bowl and keep for later.

Add the remaining sugar to the yolks and beat until tripled in volume or all the sugar has dissolved and the yolks are pale and creamy, about 8-10 minutes.

Now add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and fold in gently so as not to release any beaten in air.(Folding was maybe my favorite part) Sift in half the flour and fold in gently, followed by 1/3 beaten whites, then remaining flour, and finally remaining beaten whites. Gently turn into prepared tin, and bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes until a tester comes out clean.

Remove from tin immediately, peel off parchment and cool completely.

Whisk the egg yolks with 1/3 cup of vanilla/sugar until smooth.

Simmer 1/2 cup of milk and 236ml cream with a bit of vanilla extract. Turn off heat and let it sit for a bit. Remove filmy milk.

Dissolve flour in 3 tbsps of cold milk

Put the pan back on simmer. Once the milk mixture comes to a boil, take it off the heat and whisk into the yolk mix.

Return to a pan, and place on medium heat until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon, stirring constantly.

Take off and whisk in dissolved flour. Strain and leave to cool.

Once it is completely cooled, whip 200ml of cream with 1 tsp of vanilla extract, and fold it into the custard gently but thoroughly. You will notice the Bavarian thickening.

While the custard is cooling, slice the sponge cake into two.

When cool, smear it all over the bottom sponge cake. Slice up the strawberries and cram as many as you can onto the cream.

After placing the top sponge cake over the cream and strawberries, use a double boiler to melt some dark chocolate and your remaining cream. Use a rubber spatula to cover the top of the cake with the chocolate ganache. I would probably have used less chocolate if I knew what was going on when doing this.

Smoosh some halved strawberries into the chocolate, and there you have it--cake!

(ppps don't drizzle chocolate unless you know what you're doing, either. I .. it was .. messybad. Involved adding water to the chocolate to try to thin it out, then realizing that water evaporates. Then adding milk. Then swirling together different colors of chocolate, and covering them up with more strawberries. Then--I'm going to stop now.)

Also I used fat free milk and it was goood.

I'm not a big fan of this blog post, but I really liked the cake, so it had to happen. Thank you so much http://www.passionateaboutbaking.com for the bulk of this recipe, and for the idea of white chocolate lace, which will be implemented eventually.

I would also like to add that Amanda and I seasoned chard chips with some onion powder/cumin, and some garam masala/sesame seeds, and that worked out well. I hope she puts up the Passover Spanakopita we made too. STILL LOOKING FORWARD TO RHUBARB HAROSET.