Fraisier

I made a French strawberry cake for my husband's birthday. 

I made a genoise. 

Then, made a batch of pastry cream.

2 cups milk
3/4 c. sugar
pinch of salt
4 large egg yolks
5 tbsp. cornstarch
1 vanilla bean (or 1 tbsp. vanilla extract)
2 tbsp butter
3 sheets of gelatin (bloomed in cold water)

Place milk in sauce pan. Slice vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds out with a knife. Place bean and seeds in the milk. Bring milk to a boil on high heat. Meanwhile, Whisk together sugar, salt and cornstarch. Whisk in egg yolks. 
When milk comes to a boil, slowly whisk into sugar/egg mixture to temper eggs. Then, add back to pan. Cook on high heat stirring constantly for one minute or until it thickens.
Next, strain pastry cream through a fine sieve to catch any egg bits, vanilla bean, and lumps. 
Drain the water from the gelatin and add into pastry cream while it is still hot. Stir in to melt. Add in the butter. If you are using vanilla extract you can add it in at this point. Allow to cool completely in fridge. 

When pastry cream is completely cool. Whip up 1 c. of heavy whipping cream. Add in almond extract to taste and 1 tbsp. Grand Marnier. Gently fold whipped cream into pastry cream. 

Layer genoise, brush with syrup of choice. Layer with strawberries and the cream. Top with jam, marzipan, or both! I used the ring from my spring form pan to build the cake on a plate, and it worked out great.

Sorry no pictures! They ate all the evidence before I found my camera! Too bad because it was prettier than the last one. Here's the picture of last year's cake. 

Génoise - a great basic homemade cake

Here I offer a translation of 750g.com Recette de Génoise.

Genoise

Génoise is a great base cake that you can use with many variations. It’s not as moist as a box cake, so don’t think you will get a cake like that or you will be disappointed. What I love about génoise is that is is a sturdy cake for decorating, and the cakes dryness is a perfect receptacle for a syrup of any flavor you choose. It's a base for a fraisier.

For a basic génoise you will need:

4 eggs
125 g. (4.4 oz.) sugar
125 g. (4.4 oz.) all-purpose flour
30 g. (1 oz.) melted butter, slightly cooled
*A cake pan that has been buttered and floured (I also place a piece of parchment paper cut to fit the pan, in the bottom.)

Preheat oven to 170°C (338°F precisely but we will go with a regular 350°F).  It’s important to have your oven ready because egg foam waits for no one! And this, my dear, is an egg foam cake. So have your pan ready and your oven ready before you proceed.  Have your ingredients measured out, too.

In the bowl of your stand mixer beat the eggs and the sugar to ribbon stage using the whisk attachment. (Yes, you can do this by hand or with a hand mixer, but it takes a long time.) Ribbon stage, means it falls onto itself and then forms a "ribbon". It will be much paler in color than when you started. 

Then, gently fold in your flour a little bit at a time. Then, fold in butter. You only want to fold until all the flour is moistened.

Gently scoop the mixture into your prepared cake pan and delicately smooth out the top. 

You want it to be even in the pan. Work quickly but gently repeat after me “Egg foam waits for no one.”

Carefully place the pan in the hot oven.  If you used an 8 in” round pan it may take up to 30 minutes. If you used a half sheet pan, it may only be 7 to 10 min. When it’s done it will be golden brown and you can do the good old toothpick check for doneness.

Remove from pan about 5 to 10 min. from removing it from the oven.

Okay... Now you are ready for the syruP:

Stir together 1 cup sugar and ½ cup water.  Only stir until sugar is dissolved then bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Add flavoring you desire. It may be ½ tsp. almond extract, 1 tsp. of vanilla bean paste, or a tablespoon of rum. Taste it… add more if you want a stronger flavor. With a pastry brush, apply this to the cooled cake. You can add as much or as little as you want. Allow it to soak in before you apply any frosting.  Enjoy!

*What size cake pan? It’s up to you. I’ve made it as an 8 in. round and as a half sheet cake. Obviously you will have to adjust cooking times. The thinner the batter is in the pan, the less cooking time that is required. 

Next: http://www.750g.com/recettes_fraisier.htm

Fraisier -- Strawberry Shortcake French Style

This was Jef's birthday cake:

You can watch a fabulous video on assembling it here. This was my take on putting it together. I didn't have everything they had in the video. (No time to make pistachio paste, for instance.) Also the recipe wasn't really written out, you have to just follow the video and guess on some parts. So, I made it (twice), and this is what worked for me:

You need:

One recipe génoise + syrup (I added rum and almond extract to mine)

A double recipe of crème pâtissier with gelatin added

Butter

7 oz. marzipan

a few tablespoons of strawberry jam/perserves

1 lb. + strawberries