French strawberry cake

First, prepare the syrup. Put all the syrup ingredients except the rum into a saucepan, heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then add the rum after removing from heat. If you want it thicker, you can heat it longer; the more water evaporates, the thicker the syrup will become.

Next, make the custard: heat the milk, butter, and scraped vanilla seeds in a small saucepan over low heat until boiling, then remove from heat and cover to steep for 15 minutes.

Add granulated sugar to the egg ingredients in the custard and mix well.

Add low-gluten flour and cornstarch and mix evenly.

Slowly add the butter cream to the egg mixture, stirring as you add.

Pour it back into the milk pot and heat over medium-low heat, stirring continuously with a silicone spatula, because this milk pot tends to stick, and if you slow down, it will burn immediately. You can first heat it over medium heat for 30 seconds, then switch to low heat.

Remove from heat when it becomes thick, and continue stirring for one minute using the residual heat.

Pour into a bowl, store face down, and at the same time, you can weigh the butter and let it soften at room temperature.

Next, make the cake base by whipping the whole eggs, almond flour, and sugar A.

Sifted cake flour and cornstarch are mixed together until there is no dry powder.

Add the melted butter and mix evenly.

Beat the egg whites with granulated sugar B until fluffy.

Fold the egg whites into the cake batter in batches.

Pour into a 28 cm square baking pan, bake at 165°C with top and bottom heat for 15 minutes, then turn 180° and bake for 5 minutes.

Take out the baked cake, lift the four sides, and let it cool.

Invert, peel off the greaseproof paper, and cut the mousse ring into slices.

Take two pieces in total, and one piece needs the edge fixed. If you take two 6-inch pieces, whether round or square, you usually don't need to fix the edge. My cake is a small 8-inch one, so the edge needs to be fixed.

Beat the softened butter.

After mixing custard with rum, gradually add it to the softened butter in batches and beat until well combined. Both the custard and the butter should be at room temperature, because a temperature difference can cause the water and oil to separate. It is essential to add it in batches, as adding all the custard at once can also easily cause water and oil separation.

Prepared Muslim butter, packaged in a piping bag.

For the final assembly, a piece of almond sponge cake is brushed with vanilla syrup and spread with a thin layer of Muslim cream.

Cut the strawberries in half and place them along the edge of the mousse ring, then cover the entire surface with a layer of whole strawberries.

Fill the strawberries with cream, don't leave any empty.

Level the mousse layer.

Place another layer of cake, squeeze out the remaining cream, and spread a layer.

Soak the gelatin in water, and after it softens, mix it with the mirror layer material, heat it over low heat until it melts, then cool it down and pour it into the mold. This time I used raspberry jam, but I felt the color was not deep enough, so I added raspberry powder.

You can decorate it as you like; actually, before adding the mirrored glaze, the basic elements of the French strawberry cake are already complete.