The Loving Husband Learns and Makes Strawberry Shortcake For Wife's Birthday

In case you thought I was talking about myself, you'd know I can't possibly utter those words in reference to myself without choking and gagging.... it would be easier to extricate a confession that I voted for BN in the recent election, than for me to admit that.

Anyway, the Loving Husband in question is new friend, whom we shall arbitrarily call Mon.  As in Come Mon, hurry up.  Seriously though, that is his name, as is evidenced in their blog.  So, Mon wants to learn to bake a strawberry shortcake for his wife.  Now, I am not sure if people actually KNOW what to expect with strawberry shortcake, for as far as I gathered from most recipes, it resembles a GIANT scone, with strawberries and cream sandwiched within.  Not one to take my teaching task lightly, I scoured the net for a Malaysianised recipe, and found one that sounded quite good, from some Japanese chick called Ochikeron or something like that.

Anyway, the very gung ho husband, not content with just doing it once, insisted on having a dry run first, so these are the pictures of the first attempt. 

Anyway, for the dry run, we realised that I didn't have strawberries, because the wife (mine) forgot to buy them.  Just as well, I guess, for really, the purpose was to test out the cake.  The original recipe is as follows:

Cake
 2 eggs, room temperature
60g caster sugar
60g cake flour* (sifted, obviously)
20g  melted butter

Syrup
- 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 20ml very hot water
- 1 tsp rum  - Bundaberg if you have it.

Cream
- 300ml dairy whipping cream
- 1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp rum

The method is a bit finicky, and I'm not entirely sure necessary, but since Simon was taking NO chances, I didn't want to be the cause of the literal collapse of the cake, so I suggested he follow the recipe to a T.

First you whisk the sugar and eggs over a bowl of hot water, (obviously in another mixing bowl placed over the hot water). Then you whisk it with machinery, (the youtube video used a hand whisk, which must have taken years), till the eggs froth up and triple in quantity, which took all of 5 minutes.
Then the usual sponge thing, of folding in the flour, without losing air, and pouring the butter gently over the batter.  Just reading the recipe, I thought the original instruction to bake in an 8" pan might result in a very short shortcake, almost like a hobbit cake.  So using my discretion, we used two 6" tins, and the result, perfect.

I was very impressed with my acolyte's wrist work, as he folded in the flour with the agility of a badminton player.  The resulting cake, after baking at an oven of 160C for 12-13 minutes, was great, and this is bearing in mind no baking powder was used.  To celebrate, we opened a rare bottle of glenmorangie Astar.

After sampling the finished product, I concluded that :
1. The recipe was too sweet, and I would half the sugar content.
2. The recipe was too little, and we would have to double the quantity of batter.
3.  The whipping cream was good, but not rich enough, so I suggested a mascarpone cream instead.  Twice the price, and double the pleasure.

A confident student retraces his steps learnt the week before. With overconfidence, come the mistakes.  I was having a little too much tipple, but it suddenly dawned on me, he forgot at least two items.  The vanilla extract, and the melted butter.  Tsk tsk tsk, can't let these young people do anything on their own.

Nevertheless he follows the rest of the instruction pretty well, including whipping the mascarpone.
In case you want to know:
250 gm Mascarpone
300 gm whipping cream
 3 tbspn sugar
2 tbspn rum

Double quantity of the cake mixture (except the sugar) baked in two 8" sandwich tins this time.  Same, 160C for 12-14 minutes.

The last dollop of mascarpone being applied, and the final layer of strawberries plonked on. 

What a labour of lurve.

Anyway, guys, looking to impress your wife, this is a one off private tuition class.  While the idea is nauseatingly romantic, .... you'll have to find yourself another tutor. 

Oh, epilogue, according to the loving husband, the wife rated his cake an 8/10! Maybe if he didnt forget the butter and vanilla could have bumped it up to a 9/10.