My Birthday Cake - Sponge Cake with Berries, Choco and Nut Toppings + Recipe

Hi There!

This cake was baked with the intention of celebrating my birthday. We celebrated though and had lunch at Leopoldauer Alm, a local steakhouse near our place and had this cake as highlight for the afternoon coffee at home. Since retirement two years ago, I thought I have more time for my hobbies, but to tell you frankly the stress is not there anymore and still time is always too short for me these days. I have many things to do more than ever and all of those make me want to do all of them at the same time, but that of course is impossible now that I am on Steemit blogging! Lol!

When I was still working, I used to wake up very early. My corporate job had always been so stressful due to the nature of my work. Nowadays, I wake up at around 8:00 AM and before having breakfast, I would first visit my container garden on the top terrace and water my potted tomatoes, green beans, salad greens , cukes, bell peppers as well as eggplant. Every season from Spring til end of Summer, I grow these veggies and reap the reward later when they are ready for harvesting. I was once curied in the beginning of my steemit journey for my garlic cherry tomatoes which I made into preserves. At first, I had no idea that curie existed and didn´t know at that time what curie stands for. At any rate, their curation boosted my account.. You can get my recipe on the Roasted Garlic Tomatoes here.

4 Points To Ponder When Baking This Cake

a... It is a lot easier and will save you time if you prepare, measure the ingredients beforehand.

b... You can use a silicon form... it is very handy since you won´t need to grease it compared to the metal Springform. Even if the Springform is coated with teflon, from constant use, it may have scratches so you need to grease it with oil or butter so the cake won´t stick and lose its form.

c... This cake has sugar as ingredient and if you are avoiding sugar you can substitute it with Stevia in powder form. The ratio is 1:1. What I do is weigh the sugar and measure its number in spoons. The same number of spoons will apply to the sugar substitute Stevia.
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d... Since this is a cake with fresh fruits and berries, this should be consumed the same day or freeze some portion of it.

Sponge Cake with Berries, Chocolate and Nut Toppings

Serves 6

Ingredients: Sponge cake

30 g unsalted butter
3 eggs
120 g of sugar
1 pack vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt
75 g wheat flour
75 g starch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180 ° C setting the top / bottom heat.

Preparation

1...Melt the butter and let it cool down. Separate the egg white and the yolk. In a container, beat the egg yolks, 4 tablespoons of warm water, sugar and vanilla sugar for 5 minutes until fluffy in consistency. Fold in the butter to the mixture...set aside.

2... In the meantime, beat the egg whites with salt until peaks are formed, fold this to the egg yolk cream... sift the flour, starch and baking powder in the egg mixture and with a spatula mix carefully until the flour is fully integrated in the batter. Transfer batter in a buttered/floured Springform ( or silicon form) of 26 cm and bake for about 35 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool and divide the cake horizontally into 3 parts for filling....set aside.

Ingredients: Filling

Strawberry marmalade
500 g mascarpone
3 eggs
150 g icing sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon

250 ml whipping cream
50 g sugar
1 pck cream stiffener/ stabilizer
1 pck vanilla sugar

Ingredients: Toppings

400 grams mixed berries ...(I used blueberries, strawberries and raspberries)
100 grams Chocolate bar with nuts
about 5 chopped walnuts

Preparation:

1... In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs, sugar and lemon juice until fluffy in consistency....add the mascarpone, mix until all are well blended. Divide the mascarpone mixture into two equal parts. In one part, add 2 tablespoons of strawberry marmalade to achieve a pale rose color of mixture.... set aside the two mascarpone cream.

2... In the chilled mixing bowl, whisk together at high speed the cold whipping cream, vanilla sugar and sugar until peaks formed. Add the cream stiffener/stabilizer and continue whisking for 30 seconds.

3... Place the bottom of the cake on a huge platter, spread the marmalade on it. Fill the 1st layer with the strawberry mascarpone cream. Add the 2nd layer sponge cake on top of the 1st layer, repeat the same process by spreading marmalade on the cake then adding the plain mascarpone cream on it. Finally, add the top of the sponge cake.

4... Cover the cake top with the whipping cream. Brush the edge and the sides thinly with a little cream, the cake should still shimmer through. Coat the surface with the remaining cream and leave the cake to cool in the fridge for about 3 hours .

5... Pile the berries on top of the cake, garnish with chopped walnuts. Heat the chocolate bar with 4 tbsp milk in the microwave or under low fire ... stirring constantly. Adjust the milk if more is needed to dissolve and liquify the chocolate. Pour a teaspoon of the still warm choco liquid at a time on the edges of the cake so that it drips down the platter.

Enjoy Baking & Happy Weekend !
Content and images on this post are original and are properties of the author. If you would like to use any of the photos from this post, please give source credits by linking the URL of this post in your content.Camera: Canon EOS 1200D

Specials thanks to @gremayo for the GIF