Grandma's strawberry cake

The summer is over but we are still enjoying some warm days here in Finland. It was a nice summer with a lot of fun days together as a family; having picnics at the park, swimming, eating yummy strawberries and enjoying the midnight sun.

How does summer taste to you? What food memories it brings to your mind? When I think about how summer tastes I am always reminded of the strawberry cake/pie my grandma used to make. It had a simple cake base (often ready made from the store), plenty of whipped cream and fresh strawberries. We used enjoy our cake and coffee out at the porch while chatting and talking for what seemed hours. Grandma was full of love, warmth and care for others. In the memory of my grandma I decided to make her strawberry cake this summer. In the end it did turn up a little different but the taste was how I remembered it. I hope you will enjoy it too.

Grandma's strawberry cake

Base

The cake base is from another blogger Kinuskikissa (link: https://www.kinuskikissa.fi/70-kakkupohja/). I use it almost always now because it makes a nice fluffy and soft cake base good for layered cakes. Its called 70 % cake base because its based on weighing the eggs first. Then you add 70% of eggs weight of sugar and flour.

For this cake I made the base with 3 eggs with following amounts:
3 eggs = weight 150g
sugar 0,7x150g= 105g
flour 0,7x150g= 105g of which 70% is white baking flour 0,7x105g=73,5g and rest 30% is potato flour 0,3x105g=31,5g.
1 tea spoon of baking powder

Butter and crumb baking pan with bread crumbs. I used size 24cm pan. Preheat oven to 175C.

Using a mixer beat the sugar and eggs together until fluffy and doubled in volume (at least 10-15 minutes of mixing). Then mix flour and baking powder together and sift into the egg mixture, use a spatula to gently mix together. To make this cake fluffy and soft you need to beat the eggs well together and mix the flour in very carefully. If you mix too much when adding the flour the cake will be very dense or even hard.

Pour the batter into a baking pan and bake for about 35 minutes or until cake tester/toothpick comes out clean.

Filling

2dl heavy whipping cream
1/2-1dl curd or greek yogurt
1 tea spoon of vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
powdered sugar according to taste
plenty of strawberries

With a mixer whip together the heavy cream, vanilla and powdered sugar. In the end add curd or greek yogurt and powdered sugar. Check the taste and continue whipping until the cream can hold a stiff peak.

Once the cake base has cooled off cut it to 2-3 layers. Place one layer of cake on a platter, moisten with milk, top with filling and add sliced/diced strawberries. Place another layer of cake on top and repeat. Place the third layer of cake on top and cover with the leftover filling. Decorate with whole strawberries and whipped cream (and mint leaves). Enjoy after few hours in the refrigerator.