Fraisier cake, also known as strawberry tart, is a classic of French pastry. This preparation is completely filled with whole strawberries, although the most characteristic are the halves around the cake that make it so attractive. Its composition consists of two sheets of Genoese sponge cake, filled with strawberries and muslin cream. In the upper part, it normally contains a thin layer of red marzipan or meringue, depending on its origin, although the best known is the one that we bring you here in this article, which is with marzipan. In addition, we point out that it is not a complicated cake to make, but it does have several steps, so you must have a little patience. The result is a very fine cake from the renowned French pastry shop that will delight all diners.
In this article we teach you how to make easy fraiser cake. Let’s cook!
Ingredients to make Fraisier Pie:
- For the muslin cream:
- 125 grams of sugar
- 4 egg yolks L
- 50 grams of sugar (¼ cup)
- 500 milliliters of milk
- 1 tablespoon liquid vanilla extract
- 250 grams of unsalted butter
- For the cake:
- 175 grams of sugar
- 6 eggs L
- 1 pinch of salt
- 25 milliliters of sunflower oil
- 175 grams of all-purpose flour (1¼ cups)
- For the syrup
- 50 grams of sugar (¼ cup)
- 50 milliliters of water
- 1 tablespoon Cointreau, Kirsch or any liqueur
- For the marzipan:
- 75 grams of icing sugar
- 75 grams of ground almonds
- 3 tablespoons of honey
- 2 drops of red food coloring
- filling
- 600 grams of strawberries
How to make Fraisier Pie:
- To start with the fraisier cake recipe, you must first make the mousseline cream.
- To do this, in a bowl add the sugar along with the egg yolks and cornstarch, mix well with a wooden spoon. It will look like a paste
- Put the milk in a pot together with the dessert spoonful of liquid vanilla and heat over high heat without letting it boil.
- Remove the hot milk from the heat and pour a scoop of the milk into the bowl where you had the yolks along with the sugar and cornstarch.
- Mix quickly so that the yolks do not curdle.
- Next, continue adding the hot milk a little at a time while mixing with a hand mixer.
- Return everything to the pot and let it boilover low heat, do not forget to stir from time to time, especially at the end when you see that the cream thickens.
- Remove from the heat and pour the pastry cream into a bowl.
- Next, cover with plastic wrap, it must come into contact with the cream, let it cool for at least 2 hours
- Remove the butter from the fridge to soften.
- Tip: you can also speed up the process, when the cream is warm you can add it in the freezer.
- Once the muslin cream is cold, chop the butter and add little by little to the cream while beating with an electric whisk.
- When it is well beaten, it will be ready for use, but if it is not used at the moment, it is better to reserve it in the fridge again.
- Now continue with the cake for the fraisier cake. To do this, preheat the oven to 180ºC.
- Next, add the sugar with the eggs and a pinch of salt in a bowl, beat well with an electric whisk.
- The mixture should foam, since you will not add yeast to it to rise, since it is not the purpose of this easy fraisier cake recipe.
- Add the sunflower oil and continue beating.
- Sift the flour over the aerated mixture of eggs, sugar and oil. Mix with a spatula in an encircling motion to continue adding air to the cake mix for the French fraisier tarte.
- Grease a mold about 20 cm in diameter and pour the cake mixture.
- Next, bake with heat up and down at 180º C for 40 minutes, or until when you pierce the cake with a sharp knife it comes out clean with no remains of dough.
- Tip: if the cake browns too soon, you should cover it with aluminum foil.
- Once the cake is baked, if you notice that it has bulged a bit, with the help of a hot mitten, flatten the bulge a bit.
- Then unmold and let cool completely.
- When the cake is cold, cut it in half with a sharp knife.
- Use a slightly smaller removable mold, between 17-18 cm and cut the cake sheets so that they are the same as the mold and fit well.
- Grease the removable mold and line the walls with baking paper, we point out that you should leave the paper a little higher than the mold.
- Put the first half of the cake on the base and fit well.
- Next, prepare a homemade syrup with the 50 gr of sugar, the 50 ml of water and the tablespoon of liquor, bring to a boil and remove from heat.
- Soak the cake plate well with half the syrup.
- Remove the muslin cream from the fridge and beat again to make it creamy again.
- Add a little cream to the bottom of the cake, just enough to stick the strawberries.
- Cut 12-15 strawberries in half and place themon the side of the pan, side by side.
- Fill the whole cakewith the whole strawberries.
- Cover the entire cake with the muslin cream, in addition, you must reserve a little cream to later put the marzipan.
- Give a few small blows downwards in the mold to settle the cream well and not form bubbles.
- Next, smooth the surface of the cream with a spatula. What do you think of the fraisier cake with mousseline cream and strawberry jam?
- Cover the cake with the other half of the sponge cake, press a little with your hands and soak well with the rest of the syrup.
- Reserve the cake in the fridge for at least 4 hours, or better overnight so that it sets well.
- Finally, make the marzipan. To do this, put the ground almonds in a bowl together with the icing sugar and two tablespoons of honey.
- Mix well, first with a wooden spoon and then with your hands.
- Add the other tablespoon of honey if necessary and even half more, that will depend on the texture you have left, it should be like plasticine.
- When you already have the desired texture, add the coloring. If possible, look for it to have an intense red color, like strawberries. Mix well with your hands.
- Put the marzipan dough between two baking papers and flatten with a rolling pin making a circular shape and leaving a thin marzipan dough.
- Remove the baking paper from above the marzipan dough. Next, take the fraisier cake from the fridge and carefully unmold it, but do not remove the paper yet. The cake mold will help you cut a circle of marzipan to decorate the cake.
- Now, with the help of a spatula, add a little of the muslin cream on top of the iron on top of the fraisier cake. Put the just so that the marzipan circle is adhered.
- Remove the baking paper that you had around the fraisier cake and very carefully, place the marzipan circle on top of the cake.
- Trick: it will be easier for you if you cut a little bit of the paper where the circle is located and turn it over on top of the cake.
- You can leave it as is or add three strawberries on top as decoration. You can also decorate it as we have done, with some thin lines of melted white chocolate together with some small white meringues and some little flowers made with the remains of leftover marzipan.
- Reserve in the fridge until serving time. Eat your fraisier cake as soon as possible, or up to three days after it is made.
