Raspberry Panna Cotta [覆盆子意式奶冻]

Panna cotta, at its most basic, is just milk and cream jelly. The jelly may be served as it is, but that'd be quite boring.

How to liven up plain panna cotta?

Make it heart-shaped. Make it in bright colours.

Looking good is half the battle won. Tasting good is the other half.

Raspberries work like a charm in panna cotta. They brighten the blandness of milk and cream with a tart fruitiness. In return, the milk and cream tone down the sourness of raspberries. One would be lesser without the other.

Heart-shaped panna cotta is perfect when you want a light dessert. Why? Because the glass looks like it's filled to the brim, but it's actually half empty. There's really not much in there! And 3/4 of what's there is just juice, milk and water.

Here are a few good-to-knows that you might want to know:

1. How much gelatine powder to replace gelatine leaf?
That depends on your gelatin powder's Bloom number. To replace 1 gelatine leaf with gelatine powder, use:

2.5 g or 3/4 tsp for Bloom 160-180

2.0 g or 2/3 tsp for Bloom 190-225

2. What is Bloom number?
All gelatines have a Bloom number to indicate their quality of gel strength, taste and clarity. The higher the number, the better the quality.

3. How to bloom and melt gelatine powder?
Place the powder in a bowl. Sprinkle with just enough room temperature water to wet it thoroughly. (For 2 g powder, use 6 g water). Place the bowl in a hot water bath, and proceed as in the recipe below.

4. Where can you buy gelatine leaves?
Supermarkets, baking supply shops (Bake King, Phoon Huat, etc), and online (bakeking.com.sg, amazon.com, taobao.com, parknshop.com, sainsburys.co.uk, etc).

5. Why do I use frozen instead of fresh raspberries?
Because they're much cheaper than fresh raspberries. The 1 kg pack I buy is S$13.70 (about US$10). Fresh ones are S$6.50 for 170 g.

6. Can you use fresh raspberries instead?
Sure. But you can't mash fresh raspberries with a spatula.

7. What can you use instead of raspberries?
It's a free world. Please feel free to use whatever you like.

8. Can you use water instead of milk? Milk instead of water? Milk instead of cream? "Something" instead of milk? Whole milk instead of full-fat milk? "Normal milk" instead of full-fat milk? Etc instead of etc?
Please refer to point #7.

RASPBERRY PANNA COTTA (Recipe for 2 persons) Cream jelly 1 gelatine leaf, soak in ice water till soft 1/2 tbsp sugar 80 g full-fat milk, room temperature 80 g dairy cream with 35% fat, cold Raspberry jelly 1 gelatine leaf, soak in ice water till soft 1 tbsp sugar 60 g water, room temperature 140 g frozen raspberries thaw, mash and sieve to yield 100 g juice 1. To make cream jelly, squeeze gelatine leaf to remove excess water. Place in bowl. Place bowl in hot water bath. Add 1/2 tbsp sugar. Stir till gelatine and sugar dissolve. Add half of milk. Stir thoroughly. Add remaining milk. Stir thoroughly. Remove bowl from water bath. Add cream. Stir thorougly. Taste and add more sugar if necessary. 2. To make raspberry jelly, squeeze gelatine leaf to remove excess water. Place in bowl. Place bowl in hot water bath. Add 1 tbsp sugar. Stir till gelatine and sugar dissolve. Add half of water. Stir thoroughly. Add remaining water. Stir thoroughly. Remove bowl from water bath. Add raspberry juice. Stir thoroughly. Taste and add more sugar if necessary. 3. To assemble, rest two 8 x 7 cm glasses at 45º angle. Fill 1 glass with cream jelly. Fill other glass with raspberry jelly. Refrigerate both glasses till jelly is set, about 2 hours. 4. Leave remaining jelly at room temperature for 1 hour, then refrigerate to chill but not set. 5. When jelly in glasses is set, turn glasses 180º vertically. Fill cream jelly glass with remaining raspberry belly. Fill raspberry jelly glass with remaining cream jelly. Refrigerate till set, about 1 hour. Turn glasses upright. Cover. Refrigerate till ready to serve.

Mango Mille Crepe Cake (芒果千层可丽饼蛋糕)

Crepes may be tough and rubbery. Or they may be soft and delicate, that they fall apart in the pan when you flip them.

What makes good crepes good, and bad crepes bad?

Gluten.

Batter with too much gluten makes rubbery crepes. Batter with too little gluten makes overly delicate crepes that tear easily. Making good crepes is about getting the right amount of gluten. Once you nail that, you win 50% of the battle.

What's the basic building block for gluten? Flour protein. Too much protein would create too
much gluten, and vice versa. The ratio of flour to other ingredients is crucial. And so is the type of
flour. Some flours have more protein; some have less.

The amount of oil and egg yolk in the batter is also important. Why? Because fat reduces gluten formation, so it has a big impact on how the crepes turn out.

How much should you stir the batter? Stirring increases gluten formation. When you're making the batter, mix just enough to make it smooth.

Frying crepes one by one takes time. As the batter sits, the flour in the mixture sinks to the bottom of the bowl. To keep it evenly mixed, remember to stir now and then. Otherwise, crepes made with
thinner batter will tear. And crepes made with thicker batter will be rubbery.

Most crepe recipes tell you to sieve the batter, and let it rest before frying. That's because there's a lot of flour in these recipes. Sieving reduces the amount of flour, because some of it sticks to the sieve. And resting relaxes the gluten. Without these two steps, the crepes would be rubbery.

My recipe is different from others. It has far less flour. The batter would have too little flour, and the gluten would be too weak if it's sieved and rested. That would make crepes that tear easily.

If you want crepes that have the right texture, flavour and look, getting the batter right isn't enough.
You must also get the heat right.

The pan must be hot enough. Why? Because heat turns the water in eggs and milk into steam, which
makes the crepes puff up. When crepes puff up more, they're softer.

Heat is also needed to turn crepes brown. The browning gives crepes a lacy look, and it enhances the fragrance of the crepes.

The frying pan mustn't be too hot either. If it is, the batter sets once it hits the pan, and the crepe
would be too thick. Thick crepes are tough. When the pan isn't too hot, there's time to swirl the batter into a thin layer before it sets. Good crepes are just thick enough to flip without breaking.

Turning a pile of crepes into mille crepe cake takes a lot of filling. If I fill my mille crepe cake with only whipped cream, that's way too rich for me.

I need to lighten whipped cream with something. Pastry cream? Too much work. Durian? The fridge will smell for days. Strawberries? Too hard. Mangoes? Hey, bingo!

Sweet and soft, mangoes go well with crepes and cream in both flavour and texture. The cheerful yellow doesn't hurt either. Who doesn't like colourful food?

Most people make about 20 crepes for their mille crepe cake. I do only 11. Why? Because I have a layer of mango between each crepe. That's adding 10 layers in total, so my cake isn't short at all.

Here's how I make my sunny, cheerful, and delicious mango mille crepe cake:

MANGO MILLE CREPE CAKE (芒果千层可丽饼蛋糕) (Recipe for one 16 cm cake) Crepes (makes 11 pieces using 18 cm frying pan) 30 g sugar 100 g eggs 15 g egg yolk 30 g corn oil 60 g plain flour 200 g full-fat milk 1/4 tsp pandan paste lard for greasing steel pan or corn oil if using non-stick Filling 200 g dairy cream with 35% fat, cold 30 g sugar 1/4 tsp vanilla extract 3 mangoes, each about 250 g To make crepes 1) Mix sugar with eggs, yolk and corn oil till dissolved. Sift plain flour into mixture. Mix till even and smooth. Add half of full-fat milk. Mix till even and smooth. Add remaining milk. Mix till even and smooth. 2) Heat 18 cm frying pan over medium-low heat till medium-hot (125-130ºC). Reduce heat to low. Grease pan lightly. 3) Measure 39 g batter into cup. Pour into middle of pan. Swirl quickly to form even layer. Measure another 39 g batter into cup. Set aside. When crepe turns slightly brown around edges (takes about 30 seconds), loosen and flip with flexible spatula. Fry till second side is slightly brown (about 20 seconds). Remove crepe to plate. Repeat frying as before, making 11 crepes in total. Whilst frying, mix batter gently once per batch of 3-4 crepes. 4) Leave crepes till cool. Refrigerate till thoroughly chilled. To make filling 5) Whip dairy cream with sugar till thick. Add vanilla extract. Whip till cream is just stiff enough to stick to whisk. Place cream in fridge. 6) Peel mangoes. Cut into 1 mm thick slices. Discard peel and seeds. To assemble cake 7) Place 1 crepe on serving plate. Spread with 23 g whipped cream. Top with mangoes. Place another crepe on mango layer and repeat layering as before, making sure cake isn't lopsided. 8) Gently press top of cake with bottom of cake pan. Cover cake with pan. Refrigerate for about 12 hours. Serve.

Vanilla Swiss Roll (香草瑞士蛋糕卷)

There're a few common problems with making Swiss rolls: (1) The cake is hard and dry. (2) The crust sticks to the paper the cake is wrapped in. (3) The crust cracks when you roll the cake.

Good Swiss roll starts with, of course, a sheet cake that's fluffy. You know what's wrong with a lot of Swiss roll recipes? They have way too much flour.

A cake that's 1-2 cm tall should have very little flour because it doesn't need much structural support. If it has as much flour as a cake that's 5-7 cm tall, it would be dense and hard.

There's no point in baking a cake that's fluffy but dried out. What makes my cake moist? Oil. It has more oil than flour. If you're on a low-carb, high-fat diet, this is the cake for you!

Water doesn't help make a sheet cake moist. Why? Because the cake is so thin, H₂O in the batter evaporates very quickly. It's gotta be fat that keeps the cake moist. 

Of course, don't overbake the cake or it'll be dry no matter how much fat it has. Timing is critical because a 1-2 cm thick cake may overbake in 1-2 minutes. Make sure the cake is removed from the oven once the middle is springy when pressed lightly.

How to stop the crust from sticking to the paper it's wrapped in? Easy. Just don't wrap the cake in paper.

A lot of Swiss roll recipes tell you to roll the cake whilst it's piping hot, when it's most flexible and least likely to crack. This (the rolling, not telling) is done after placing the cake on a piece of parchment paper, and then dusting the crust with icing sugar.

The cake is rolled along with the paper, which stops the cake from sticking to itself.

The sugar is supposed to stop the crust from sticking to the paper, in theory. In practice, however, it doesn't because the cake releases moisture as it cools down. The paper traps the moisture that makes the crust wet and, hence, sticky.

How about wrapping the cake in a tea towel which breathes better than parchment paper? That works if the cake is quite dry when it's removed from the oven. But who wants a dried out Swiss roll, right? If it's moist as it should be, it'd still stick to the tea towel.

I let my sheet cake cool down on a wire rack after it's baked, without rolling or covering it.

Is my cake dry after it's cooled down? Not at all, because it has loads of fat and it's not overbaked.

Does my cake crack when I roll it after it's cooled down?

Nope, it doesn't because it's very flexible. The cake can stretch and bend into a roll without breaking. The flexibility is due to the way the eggs are beaten. The whites are whisked to firm peak stage, then the yolks are added one at a time and whisked thoroughly. Compared to the whole egg or chiffon method, this makes a cake that's more stretchable.

Some people wrap their Swiss roll, after rolling, to set the shape. If you want to do that, I suggest you use a tea towel. Parchment paper, if tightly wrapped around the cake for a few hours, will stick to the crust.

I prefer not to wrap the cake. There's really no need to do so provided the filling is firm when I'm rolling the cake.

If you use dairy cream filling, it must be firm when you're spreading it on the cake. And you must work quickly so it's still firm when you roll the cake. If it isn't, put the cake in the freezer for five minutes or so.

Here's how I make a Swiss roll (without pushing him down a mountain):

VANILLA SWISS ROLL (香草瑞士蛋糕卷) (Recipe for one 13" roll) Cake 140 g egg whites 60 g castor sugar 60 g egg yolks 40 g cake flour 1/16 tsp fine salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 60 g corn oil butter for greasing pan Filling 80 g chocolate spread       or 215 g whipped cream (click here for recipe) 1 can (312 g) mandarin orange, drained and chilled This recipe is double the pygmy-sized (10" x 7") cake in the video. 1. To make cake, preheat oven to 200°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Grease 13" x 10" pan with butter. Line pan with 13" x 13" parchment paper. 2. Whisk egg whites on medium-slow speed till thick foam forms. Gradually add castor sugar whilst continuing to whisk. Keep whisking till egg whites are at soft peak stage. Reduce speed to slow and continue to whisk till firm peak stage (when whisk is lifted, egg whites form peak that's hooked). 3. Add yolks to whites in 4 batches. Whisk on slow speed till evenly mixed after each addition. Sift half of cake flour into mixture. Add salt. Mix with whisk till almost even. Sift remaining cake flour into mixture. Mix with whisk till just even. Add vanilla extract and corn oil. Fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. 4. Pour batter into cake pan. Spread with spatula as evenly as possible, pushing batter into corners of pan. Jiggle till batter is level. Tap pan against worktop twice. Bake on middle shelf till middle of cake is springy when pressed, 10-11 minutes. Remove from oven. Drop pan from 1' high 3-4 times. Unmould cake onto wire rack. Peel parchment paper from sides of cake. Leave till cool. 5. To assemble, place cake on new sheet of parchment paper, face down. Peel parchment paper from bottom of cake. Spread evenly with chocolate spread or whipped cream. Place mandarin orange, if using, in middle of cake. Roll cake as shown in video. 6. To cut chocolate spread Swiss roll neatly, dip serrated knife in hot water before each cut and wipe dry/clean with paper towel. For orange and cream Swiss roll, chill till cream filling is set, then use a serrated knife that's wiped clean after each cut. 7. Orange and cream Swiss roll is best eaten after an overnight rest in the fridge, when the filling has had time to perfume the cake. Chocolate spread Swiss roll should be chilled or eaten once it's made. Otherwise, oil separates from the spread and seeps into the cake, making it hard.

Banana Chiffon Cake (香蕉戚风蛋糕)

If you like your banana cake very fluffy and very "banana-y", you must try my version. Other recipes may be as fluffy but not as banana-y, or as banana-y but not as fluffy.

Making banana cake more banana-y is easy. I simply put loads of very ripe bananas in it.

Most recipes for banana cake have about 1 part banana to 1 part flour. Some may go up to 2:1. Mine has 175 g bananas to 70 g flour, so the ratio is 2.5:1.

When banana cake has a lot of bananas, it becomes dense and wet. IOW, it turns into banana bread. That's a good thing if you like heavy and squat banana bread but I don't.

How do I stop banana cake from turning into banana bread?

By making the cake rise, so it's not dense. And making the cake dry out, so it's not too wet.

To help the cake rise well, my recipe has a fair bit of baking soda and baking powder. Egg whites whisked till firm peak stage also lend a hand. A chiffon pan helps too because the funnel makes the batter heat up evenly.

I use a fairly low temperature, 160°C. If the temperature is higher, the inside of the cake would still be wet when the top is brown. Mashed bananas dry out slowly, so the cake must be baked longer, at a lowish temperature. If the cake is too wet when it's removed from the oven, it'll shrink as it cools down or after it's unmoulded.

Besides the baking time and temperature, putting less wet ingredients in the cake also helps make the cake less wet. There's no water or milk in the recipe, and there's only a small amount of oil.

A fluffy cake is fluffy because its structure is weak. To stop the structure from collapsing when it's at its weakest – just after the cake is removed from the oven –  it must cling to the sides and bottom of the cake pan. The pan, therefore, mustn't be non-stick and it must be inverted once it's removed from the oven. A funnel in the middle gives the cake more surface area to cling to.

Banana cake is best served without frosting, so there's nothing to mask the flavour of the bananas.

Are you ready to eat the most fluffy and most banana-y ever banana cake? Hey, you have to bake it first.

BANANA CHIFFON CAKE (香蕉戚风蛋糕) (Recipe for one 18 x 8 cm cake) 2-3 very ripe bananas, peel to yield 175 g 60 g egg yolks 15 g castor sugar 40 g corn oil 70 g cake flour 1⁄4 tsp baking powder 1⁄2 tsp baking soda 1⁄8 tsp salt 140 g egg whites 1⁄16 tsp cream of tartar 50 g castor sugar Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Blend 175 g bananas, egg yolks, corn oil and 15 g castor sugar till smooth and thoroughly incorporated. Sift cake flour, baking soda and baking powder into mixture. Add salt. Mix with whisk till just even. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till egg whites form thick foam. Gradually add 50 g castor sugar, still whisking. Continue to whisk till egg whites reach firm peak stage. Add egg whites to yolk mixture in 3 batches. Mix with whisk till almost even after each batch. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. Pour batter into 18 x 8 cm 2-piece chiffon pan that's not non-stick, rotating pan as you pour so that batter is spread evenly. Jiggle pan till batter is level. Bake in bottom of oven for about 1 hour, till cake is well browned and, when pressed lightly, springs back and squishes softly. (Loud squishing means the cake is still too wet.) Remove cake from oven. Invert onto something narrow and tall, e.g. jam jar or inverted glass. Leave till cool. Cut cake out of pan. Serve.

Orange Sponge Cupcakes (香橙海棉杯子蛋糕)

Hark! Do you hear the sound of thundering hooves?

The Year of the Horse is coming!

Happy Chinese New Year! 祝大家大吉大利!

My last recipe in the Year of the Snake, that's slithering away real fast, is orange sponge cupcakes. To bake these little cakes, please follow the recipe. If you don't, the texture may be coarse and rubbery instead of soft and fluffy.

Orange cake, when it's made with whole rather than separated eggs, is a little tricky. The acid in orange zest and orange juice would destabilise the eggs if it has half a chance. So you must make sure it doesn't have any chance, not even half.

There're a few booby traps in the recipe that may trip you up if you're not careful. Here's what you have to do:

⋈ The flour must be mixed with the eggs first, before orange zest is added to the batter. It protects the eggs from the acid in the orange peel. If you add the zest before or with the flour, the batter will become thin and bubbly. The bubbles won't magically disappear in the oven, so your cakes will be full of big holes.

⋈ After adding orange zest and juice, along with oil, the batter must be folded with a spatula, quickly and gently. A whisk would result in overmixing, allowing the acid to attack the eggs. If the batter becomes bubbly and runny, you can wave goodbye to your cakes.

⋈ The oven must be at 190°C. If the temperature is too low, the cakes set too slowly, giving the orange zest and juice time to attack the eggs.

There're many roads to Rome. If you compare my recipe to Nasilemaklover's,  you'll find that hers has more flour. Her orange sponge cupcakes use  100 g cake flour for 3 eggs whereas mine would have only 60 g cake flour  for 3 eggs. The more flour there is, the safer the eggs.

For those who like to compare recipes, here you go:


Between the two recipes, I prefer mine because . . . it's mine. Just as, I'm sure, NLL likes hers because it's hers. Hey, I know! You would be more objective. Why don't you try both and tell us which one is better?

ORANGE SPONGE CUPCAKES (香橙海棉杯子蛋糕) (Recipe for 5 cupcakes) 100 g eggs 6 g glucose 40 g castor sugar 40 g cake flour pinch salt 4 g orange zest finely grated with a sharp zester 30 g corn oil 10 g fresh orange juice add to corn oil Preheat oven to 190°C. Prep and measure ingredients as detailed above. Lay out 5 cardboard cupcake moulds (4 big- and 1 regular-sized). Whisk glucose, eggs and sugar till ribbon stage. Sift half of cake flour into egg mixture. With a whisk, mix till almost even. Sift remaining half of cake flour. Add salt. Mix with a whisk again, this time till just even. Add orange zest. Stir orange juice and oil mixture and add to batter. With a spatula, quickly scrape down and fold till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 1-2 times, not too hard, to remove big air bubbles. Quickly fill cardboard moulds with batter to 90% full. Arrange moulds on baking tray, spaced apart. Place tray on oven's bottom shelf. Bake till batter doesn't move when gently jiggled, about 10 minutes. Move tray to upper middle shelf. Bake till cakes are golden brown, and springy when pressed lightly, another 5 minutes or so. Remove cakes to wire rack. Serve warm or leave to cool down completely. Cold cupcakes may be topped with buttercream, whipped cream or cream cheese frosting, and decorated with orange and mint leaves.

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake (草莓奶油蛋糕; Strawberry Cream Cake)

Japanese strawberry shortcake is a layered sponge cake filled and topped with whipped cream and strawberries. It is what I call a ménage à trois made in heaven, because each party brings out the best in the other two.

The red and white cake is very popular in Japan, especially for Christmas. I guess having the same colour scheme as Santa Claus wins a lot of votes during the Yuletide season.

There're a few ways to make a sponge cake. Some people make a dry cake, then spray/brush/drizzle it with a syrup. Others try to make a moist cake by using oil or butter, and water or milk.

I find the syrup option a bit tricky because it's a fine line between moist and soggy. Adding a non-fat liquid isn't ideal either because water, and milk, dilutes the fragrance of the eggs and oil/butter. It also makes the cake shrink more after cooling down.

My sponge cake has lots of oil, more than most other recipes. And there's liquid glucose, my "secret ingredient", to make it really fluffy, moist and fragrant.

Liquid glucose helps make sponge cake moist because it's hygroscopic, i.e. it absorbs and holds water. How does it make the cake soft and fluffy? By helping the cake rise. The higher the cake rises, the softer and fluffier it is. How does glucose help make the cake fragrant? By doing away with the need for any water or milk. Glucose itself is quite tasteless.

If I had a recipe for boiling water, some readers would say, "I don't have water. Can I use something else?" So someone is bound to ask if glucose may be replaced with sugar, or golden syrup, or something, or other. Here's the answer:



If you want to try my sponge cake recipe, be warned that it's quite princessy. This is a recipe you'd want to follow to a T. If you don't – or think you have but actually haven't – you may have a few problems, such as (but definitely not restricted to):

⋈ If the batter is very bubbly after oil is added, that's a very, very bad sign. Something is measured wrongly, or the eggs are underwhisked, or the flour isn't thoroughly mixed, or all of the above. The cake likely will not rise well.

⋈ If the batter is lumpy, you'll find lumps of flour sitting in the bottom of the cake. (These lumps are very evil. They group themselves together to make sure you see them and taste them.)

⋈ If there's too much egg white, the cake will look like an award-winning Shar-Pei (although this is a good thing if you're making a cake that looks like a Shar-Pei, award-winning or otherwise).

⋈ If the oven is too hot, the cake won't rise well. If the oven isn't hot enough, the cake won't rise well either. Yup, this cake is as fussy as Goldilocks.

Of course, don't let my warning scare you. At the end of the day, how difficult can baking a cake be, right?

Once you've got the sponge cake nailed, the rest is easy. If, like me, you don't know how to ice the sides of the cake nicely, then don't. The cake looks prettier anyway with the sides cut off. Icing the top is like spreading butter on toast, so that shouldn't be a problem.



My sponge cake is delicious plain but it's at its best embellished with whipped cream and strawberries. 1 + 1 + 1 = >3 and all that jazz, you know? Japanese strawberry shortcake isn't only good for Christmas. I reckon the classic is good whenever strawberries are in season. And since strawberries are never out of season nowadays, the red and white cake is good all year round.

JAPANESE STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE  (草莓奶油蛋糕; STRAWBERRY CREAM CAKE) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 cm cake) 10 g glucose 150 g eggs 60 g castor sugar 60 g cake flour 1/16 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 45 g corn oil 200 g fresh dairy cream, 35% fat, cold 1 tbsp castor sugar 1/3 tsp vanilla extract 100 g large strawberries hull, rinse and dry with paper towels; slice 3 mm thick 4 small strawberries with green leaves rinse and dry with paper towels; cut into 2 halves 1. Place bowl for whipping cream in fridge. Preheat oven to 185°C. Line bottom of 20 x 12 x 5 cm cake pan with parchment paper. 2. To make sponge cake, beat glucose, eggs and sugar till ribbon stage. Sift flour into mixture in 3-4 batches, adding salt along with the last batch. Mix gently with whisk after each addition, stirring just top half of batter, till smooth. Drizzle with vanilla extract and oil. Mix with whisk, again stirring just top half of batter, till you don't see streaks of vanilla extract or oil. Fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop a few times. 3. Pour batter into cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high. Tap pan against worktop a few times. Place pan in bottom of oven. Place baking tray in top of oven. Bake till batter doesn't move when gently jiggled, 15-20 minutes. Remove baking tray. Continue baking till cake is nicely browned and springs back slightly when pressed gently, another 10-15 minutes. 4. Remove cake to wire rack. Leave till pan is just cool enough to handle, 10 minutes or so. Run knife along sides of cake. Flip cake onto wood surface. Remove pan. Place cake on wire rack, right way up. Leave till completely cool. 5. To make whipped cream, place cold cream in thoroughly chilled bowl along with sugar. Whisk till cream is stiff. Add vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly. 6. To assemble, remove parchment paper from cake. Slice cake horizontally with serrated knife or cake slicer into 2 equal halves. Spread 1/3 of cream on bottom half, evenly. Arrange sliced strawberries on top of cream. Spread with half of remaining cream. Place remaining cake on cream, cut side up. Spread with remaining cream. Place cake in freezer till cream is very firm, 10-15 minutes. Level and smooth top cream layer. Trim edges with serrated knife, wiping knife after each cut. Arrange strawberry halves on cake. Chill till ready to serve, covered if keeping overnight or longer. Meanwhile, enjoy trimmings.