Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake a Seasonal Sensation

INTRODUCTION

This is another Oz-emanating recipe, one I scribbled down from a friend once after a gardenside, Sunday’s summer lunch. And you should know that I have never made it myself without some other friend asking me, in turn, for the recipe as well. Pavlova meets Victoria sponge is, give or take, what it is: but, as lazy luck would have it, much simpler to make than that or its ceremonious title would suggest.

INGREDIENTS

Serves: 8

• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• 7 tablespoons very soft unsalted butter
• 1½ cups superfine sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk
• ½ cup slivered almonds
• 1½ cups heavy cream
• 8 ounces strawberries

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375. Line, butter and flour 9-inch Springform tins.
2. Weigh out the flour, cornstarch and baking powder into a bowl.
3. Cream the butter and 1/2 cup of the superfine sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into the butter and sugar, saving the whites to whisk later. Gently fold in the weighed-out dry ingredients, add the vanilla, and then stir in the milk to thin the batter. Divide the mixture between the two prepared Springform tins.
4. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add the remaining 200g superfine sugar. Spread a layer of meringue on top of the sponge batter in each tin, and sprinkle the almonds evenly over.
5. Bake for 30–35 minutes, by which time the top of the almond-scattered meringues will be a dark gold. Let the cakes cool in their tins, then spring them open at the last minute when you are ready to assemble the cake.
6. Whip the heavy cream, and hull and slice the strawberries; that’s to say, the bigger ones can be sliced lengthways and the smaller ones halved. Invert one of the cakes on to a plate or cakestand so that the sponge is uppermost. Pile on the cream and stud with the strawberries, letting some of the berries subside into the whipped whiteness. Place the second cake on top, meringue upwards, and press down gently, just to secure it.
7. If you’ve got any more strawberries in the house, hull and halve them, and serve them in a dish on a table to eat alongside; it gives the cake a more after-lunch, less afternoon-tea kind of a feel, but it’s hardly obligatory.

Recipe from "Nigella Summer," Available here.