I handled this challenge solo, due to time constraints (read putting off actually baking this month). The host was kind to provide links to a vegan pastry cream recipe (which I used) and a vegan sponge cake recipe - this was also a gluten-free recipe, however, and I did not have nearly enough variety in flour on-hand that this recipe called for, so I instead went with a simpler recipe that called for self-rising flour, which I did have on hand.
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| Batter into the pans |
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| Two sponge cakes |
Rather than making one cake and cutting it in half, I made two cakes in 8" cake pans. While those cooled, I made the pastry cream. I was surprised at how thick it became. The first few minutes of stirring I thought that it would never hold up, but after about 5 minutes over heat, the mixture began to thicken nicely.
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| Pastry cream - thickening nicely. |
The pastry cream went in the refrigerator, and I set to slicing the fruit I was going to use, and lining a spring-form cake pan with cling wrap. Getting it to go only around the side was trickier than I would have thought, but I managed. This was just one of the moments I wished I had a second (or third) set of hands to help. Also, because there were 5 parts to this month's challenge (the cake, the pastry cream, the simple syrup, the fresh fruit, and the marzipan topping) I'm sure a lot of time could have been saved overall if we could have made some of these at the same time.
I sliced strawberries and washed blue-berries. I had a second lemon that I didn't need for the zest / juice called for in the pastry cream, so I sliced off the rinds, and cut them into half-circle slices.
One cake went in the bottom of the spring form pan, and as I coated it with the syrup I was dismayed to see how much space there was between the cake and the edges of the pan (and the cling wrap). I pressed on, layering fruit against the cling wrap strawberry - blueberries - strawberry - lemon; repeat. Next the came the pasty cream. It was a bit too thick for piping, and the parchment paper piping bag I had made came apart, I ended up spooning the cream in place, then adding the layer of strawberries and blueberries to the middle, and covering them with most of the remainder of the cream.
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| 1st layer is cake - a large gap around the edge :-| |
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| Pressing on with fresh fruit. Yum. |
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| Cream and more fruit for the middle. |
The next layer was the other cake, and once it was in place, I could still see the fruit around the edges, sticking out from the sides. I pressed on. Syrup on the cake, then the remainder of the cream. I colored the marzipan pink as the main color in the sides will be strawberries. I rolled it out, and managed to transfer it onto the top using a few tricks I picked up in my cake decorating class working with fondant. Not perfect, but better than I could have managed a few weeks ago.
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| Another cake, and some cream as adhesive. |
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| Pink Marzipan. Not quite circular, but close. |
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| Marzipan on the top. |
I trimmed the edge of the marzipan, and placed my Fraisier in the refrigerator. I have not had a chance yet to share it with my friends, and I am afraid that somehow the vegan pastry cream, or the mis-match of fruit I used, or the space between the cake and the cling wrap will make my dessert fall to pieces, so I don't want to remove the side until we are going to eat it, tomorrow. I'll post pictures of the finished sides (hopefully not as bad as I fear) once we eat them.
I am looking forward to seeing how this tastes as well.
