Any July, its cake time. Baking never bores me and of course when it is for our loved ones, the happy hormones boost up. July is the hottest month in the middle east, I hate these temperatures and it plays with the temperament. But then the whisk makes it all balanced. Whisk and a wish, voila, the magic begins. The cake I made this time is a vanilla cake with pineapple flavoured fresh cream with chunks of pineapple in between, layered. Now let’s get into the technicalities. 

For Vanilla sponge cake

Ingredients

All-purpose flour – 1 cup
Sugar  – 3/4 cup
Eggs – 4
Milk – ¼ cup
Baking powder -1 tsp
Salt -1/4 tsp
Vanilla – 1 tsp

(Quantities for an 8 inch pan)

Method

Sieve all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt together and keep it aside
Separate egg yolks and white
Whisk egg whites to stiff peaks, keep aside
Beat egg yolks with milk and vanilla, add sugar and beat again until it is light and fluffy
Add the all-purpose flour mixture to the egg yolk mixture and gently fold in the egg whites.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 
Grease the pan with butter and dust it with flour,
Bake the cake for about 25 to 30 minutes at 180 degree Celsius or till a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Mostly the time depends on the oven.

Pineapple flavoured cream

Ingredients

Whipping cream – 2 cups
Icing sugar – ¼ cup (Check and adjust it accordingly to taste)
Pineapple essence – 1 tbsp
Canned pineapple – 1 Can

Method

Whisk the cream, when it starts getting thicker,  add icing sugar and the essence. Whisk further till you see stiff peaks.

Assembling the cake

Make layers of cakes (I made 3 layers from my 8 inch cake)
Take one layer, Moisten the layer with syrup from the can of pineapple.
Then layer the cream, as an enhancement, can put small pineapple chunks from tinned pineapple.
Place the next layer of the cake on top of the above, repeat the steps.
Make sure the layers are centred, so as to get a perfect level and straight cake.
Keep the top layer inverted, to get a level top surface.

Depending on your fervour to cream, either you can leave the cake as “nude” or coat the cake with the cream evenly. To get a perfect coat needs practice. No worries if this is your first attempt. Perfect cakes are those which tastes good.

For the silhouette, use black gum paste. Roll the gum paste to a thin sheet.  If you are skilled, you can draw any shape on a tracing paper and place it over the gum paste and cut it or can trace it from a print, as I usually do.

And that is it. Your Cake is ready for serving.

Tips

The bowl used to whisk the egg whites shall be clean, oil and water free and no traces of egg yolks. The build of the sponge comes from how good the egg whites are whisked.

To get stabilized whip cream keep the bowl and the whisk in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes and use chilled cream.