Strawberry Mirror Cake

I first saw this Strawberry Mirror Cake in Tartelette's blog a few years ago and I went "WOW" when I saw her pictures.  I never expect myself to make this cake as it seem so complicated.  When I started blogging, a very good friend recommended Wendy's blog and I saw this cake again.  Months passed but I wasn't tempted to try until last month for I needed to bake a birthday cake for DD1's 8th birthday.

As usual, I used my regular chiffon cake recipe and baked it a day in advance.  The next day was basically cooking the cream and assembly.  It took me a whole day to complete this cake with lots of breaks in-between the process as I was in and out of the house several times to send and fetch kids, grocery shopping, walk the dog etc...

The original recipe uses gelatin powder but I replaced it with gelatin sheets.  When I first read the recipe, I wonder if it was a typo error as the cream calls for 2 1/2 Tbsp gelatin powder to be used.  I followed the recipe in Wendy's blog, which is 2/3 portion of original recipe but further reduce the gelatin sheets from 8 to 6 sheets.  And yes, they did set, phew!  I was very sure the cream has already set after 3 hours in the fridge so I poured in the jelly layer.  Everything was so perfect, the cake looks beautiful and it went back into the fridge.  30 minutes passed and when I opened the fridge to get something, I saw some cream floating in the jelly layer.  I always have this problem whenever I make jelly layer cake and after consulting Aunty A, I believe I wasn't gentle enough when I was pouring in the jelly layer.

Thanks to Wendy for her kind sharing, I was able to produce a decent looking cake, minus the ugly looking jelly with polka-dots :P

These are the only decent pictures I have as the rest are of very poor lightings because I took pictures at night with no natural lightings.  And there are no pictures of the whole cake as I had accidentally deleted 1 months' pictures from my SD card and that includes the main bulk of DD1's birthday shots, even her videos are gone :"(

I received good reviews from my family and some other testers but I don't think I'll make this cake again (at least not in the near future) as it is too time-consuming for me.  Taking care of 3 kids is no easy feat and any time-consuming baking is a no-no for me now.  However, my next challenge will be DS2's birthday as he has requested for a few theme cakes (in case I couldn't deliver).  Fingers crossed.

Strawberry Mirror Cake Recipe
(Recipe seen here and here, adapted from here)

Basic Chiffon Cake (recipe from here)

Ingredients
2 egg yolks
pinch of salt
20g castor sugar
40ml corn oil
70ml water
75g cake flour
1/4 baking powder
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
20g castor sugar

Strawberry Bavarian Cream
Ingredients

6 gelatin sheets, soak in some water till soften
150 gm fresh strawberries + strained strawberries from preparing the mirror.(pureed)
2 egg yolks
50gm sugar
180 ml milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
200ml dairy whipping cream

Strawberry Mirror
Ingredients
250 gm fresh strawberries
120 gm sugar
180ml water
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 gelatin sheets, soaked in some water till soften

Method

The cake

1. In a bowl, using hand whisk, whisk yolks and sugar till sugar dissolves.
2. Add oil and salt, whisk and add water. Stir well.
3. Fold in sifted flour and mix well.
4. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat till the whites are frothy. Add in Cream of Tartar and beat till soft peaks.
5. Add in sugar gradually and beat till stiff peaks.
6. Fold in 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture using a rubber spatula till incorporated.
7. Pour the mixture to the remaining egg whites and fold in gently till incorporated.
8. Pour the batter into 7" round pan. Bang the pan on the table to get rid of bubbles.
9. Bake at pre-heated oven of 170 deg.C for 15mins.
10. Turn down the temperature to 160 deg.C and bake for another 20 mins.
11. Reduce the temperature to 140 deg.C and bake for a further 5 to 10mins to brown the surface.
12. Remove from the oven and invert the pan. Remove the cake from pan when it's completely cooled.

Strawberry Mirror

1. Chop strawberries into large chunks.
2. Place strawberries, sugar and water into a saucepan. Lightly press the strawberries to release juice. Bring to a boil.
3. Strain the juice with a strainer and don't press the fruits at this point.
4. Bring the strawberry juice that was prepared earlier to a boil. Remove from fire. Add in gelatin sheets and stir to ensure the gelatin has melted (* this step to be done only after bavarian cream has set on the cake).
5. Put in lemon juice. Stir. Wait for it to cool down and turn syrupy.

Bavarian Cream

1. Blend strawberries together with strawberry pulp from strawberry mirror and gelatin sheets till well blended.
2. Whip egg yolks and sugar until pale and light.
3. Bring milk to a boil and pour in 1/4 of the milk into the egg yolk mixture while still beating with a mixer. Pour in the rest of the milk slowly. Mix well.
4. Return this mixture to the fire and cook with a low fire, stirring constantly, until your finger leaves a clear trail in sauce when drawn across the back of the spoon.(Do not boil or mixture will curdle.)
5. Imnmediately remove from heat and stir in strawberry mixture.
6. Pour into a stainless steel bowl and place over a bowl of ice water. Stir in lemon juice. Stir once a while to prevent the sides from solidifying.
7. While waiting for the strawberry custard mixture to cool down, whip whipping cream to soft peaks.
8. When strawberry gelatin mixture has cooled and thickened to the consistency of softly whipped cream, fold whipped cream into strawberry custard mixture.

Assembling

1. Slice cake into 2 layers.
2. Place 1 layer of cake into a 8" cake ring/springform pan.
3. Pour 1/2 portion bavarian cream onto cake.  Level the cream.
4. Place another layer of cake on top of the cream.
5. Pour balance bavarian cream onto the cake.  Put in the fridge to set.
6. Prepare strawberry mirror and when mirror mixture has turned syrupy pour onto the bavarian cream layer. Place cake in the fridge to set.