This stunning Fraisier cake is one I saw on the Great British Baking Show. It is made up of Genoise sponge, a Diplomat cream and filled with tons of fresh strawberries. I dusted mine with powdered sugar and garnished it with extra strawberries!
Many, many weeks ago, we were watching the Great British Baking Show and the contestants had to bake a Fraisier cake. Surprisingly, I had never heard of it. It sounded super fancy, and it looked absolutely breathtaking. I bookmarked a recipe and didn’t make the time to recreate it.
Finally, I had one morning free while my husband was golfing. Addie was busy reading so I took advantage of the time and tackled this cake. I started off making my Diplomat cream first, since I knew it would need some time to chill before I could use it.
I had a bit of trouble with my Genoise sponge. Even after using a 9″ round baking pan, I didn’t have enough batter to cover the entire bottom. My cakes ended up not quite round. Oh well.
In order to keep the cakes nicely stacked, I used the acetate strips I already had from my Momofuku cake baking and set the cake inside a springform pan. I didn’t want my cake to stick to the sides of a normal pan so I figured that a springform pan would work best for me (PS – my instinct was right).
This cake does require quite a few components, but each of them isn’t too hard to put together. I let mine set overnight so that the cream could solidify.
The Fraisier cake was nice and airy and was not too sweet. I felt that the Genoise sponge was a little on the dry side, so I recommend adding as much syrup as you can (but not so that the cakes fall apart). The assembled cake was a beauty and photographed nicely.
It was fun to tackle another item from the Netflix (BBC) series. I would like to try a few more items this year, if I’m able!
Husband’s rating: 4 out of 5
Addie’s rating: 4 out of 5
My rating: 4 out of 5
Fraisier cake
Equipment
- Acetate strips, about 3 inches tall and 25 inches in length
Ingredients
Genoise sponge
- 4 large eggs
- ¼ cup (60 grams) granulated sugar
- ⅔ cup (100 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 and ½ Tablespoons (20 grams) corn starch
Strawberry syrup
- 60 grams (about 3 large) strawberries cleaned, hulled
- ⅓ cup (90 millileters) water
- 3 Tablespoons (45 grams) granulated sugar
Diplomat cream
- 2 cups (500 millileters) whole milk I used 1%
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste I used vanilla extract
- 4 large egg yolks
- 2 Tablespoons (30 grams) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (35 grams) corn starch
- 1 and ½ teaspoon gelatin powder, dissolved in a bit of cold water
- 1 cup (250 millileters) heavy cream
Filling
- 1 pound fresh strawberries
Topping (optional)
- powdered sugar to dust
- additional strawberries to decorate
Instructions
Make the Genoise sponge
- Preheat your oven to 325°F. You have a choice on how to tackle the next part. You can either line a baking sheet with parchment paper (knowing that you'll need to cut out two 9" circles with it later) or grease and line two 9" round baking pans. I chose the latter.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and sugar together on medium high speed until it is light and frothy, about 5-8 minutes. The mixture will appear pale in color and will have almost doubled in volume.
- Turn off the mixer and gently fold in the flour and corn starch with a rubber spatula. Try not to deflate the egg mixture.
- Transfer the batter to your baking sheet or baking pans. Smooth the top so it is even.
- Bake in your preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until the cakes have puffed slightly and turn a golden color. Let the cakes cool. If you baked your cakes on the single baking pan, you'll want to cut out two 9" rounds of cake and set them aside.
Make the strawberry syrup
- In a high powdered blender, blend the strawberries and sugar together. I found this difficult to do so I added the water as well - the liquid helped the strawberries blend better.
- Pour this through a fine mesh sieve into a small saucepan. Reserve the strawberry chunks / remains for later. I added mine to the cake filling so put this aside.
- Put the saucepan on your stovetop and turn it on to medium heat. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken a bit. Take the saucepan off the heat and allow it to cool slightly.
Make the Diplomat cream
- In a small saucepan, add the milk and vanilla together and cook over low heat.
- In a separate small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until well blended. Add the corn starch and mix vigorously until smooth.
- As soon as the milk starts to simmer (but not boil), pour about half of it into the egg yolk mixture. Whisk quickly to break up any corn starch chunks and keep whisking until smooth.
- Pour this mixture back into the saucepan that is set over the stove. Keep whisking to incorporate the egg yolks. Allow the mixture to come to a slow boil and then keep mixing for an additional 30 seconds. The mixture should thicken dramatically and resemble a pudding or pastry cream.
- Take the saucepan off of the stove. Stir in the gelatin powder (mixed with a bit of cold water) and add it into the pastry cream. Mix well. Cover the saucepan with some plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to allow it to come to room temperature. You do NOT want to fully chill the cream at this point!
- Once the pastry cream has reached room temperature, take it out of the refrigerator. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or in a large bowl if using a handheld mixer, beat the heavy cream on high speed until you achieve stiff peaks.
- Gently fold in the whipped cream into the pastry cream using a few strokes as possible. Transfer about 1/3 of the cream into a pastry bag fitted with a round tip (alternatively, you can use a zip-top bag with a corner cut off).
Assemble the cake
- Place one layer of the genoise sponge on a cake plate, cake platter, pastry ring, or in a springform pan. Brush the top of the cake with a generous layer of your strawberry syrup.
- Put the acetate strip around the circumference of the cake and use scotch tape to tape the ends together.
- Find about 10-15 strawberries that are relatively similar in size. Cut them in half, lengthwise. Stand them up upside down on top of the sponge so that the flat (cut) side is pressed up against the acetate and the top (the side with the stem/hull) is on the bottom. Place the strawberries as close as possible to each other to form a ring around the cake.
- Use your piping bag to pipe bits of the cream between each strawberry. Essentially, you are "tracing" the shape of the strawberries and filling in the gaps with the Diplomat cream.
- Spread about half of the Diplomat cream on top of the cake. Then top it with the reserved strawberries (from the strawberry syrup above) and any additional strawberries you want (I'd recommend cutting them into smaller pieces). Top with the remaining Diplomat cream.
- Brush the final layer of Genoise cake with the strawberry syrup. Now place the cake layer, syrup side DOWN, on top of the Diplomat cream. Gently press down on the cake to tighten up the layers.
- Transfer to your refrigerator to chill for at least 2-3 hours and up to overnight.
- When you are ready to serve the cake, gently remove the acetate from the sides of the cake. If desired, you can sprinkle powdered sugar on top and/or garnish with additional strawberries.