Days 6 and 7: Strawberry Shortcake

Back to the kitchen!  We learned how to make a cake called a Fraisier.  The French word for strawberry is fraise.  It is similar to an american strawberry shortcake, but lighter and creamier and just much tastier.  The fancy factor of the Fraisier is seeing the sliced strawberries inside the cake on the outside edge which is achieved by tedious effort when layering the cake.  I took pictures of the Chef's Fraisier as he was assembling it.

The first layer was a light yellow spongecake that was once again baked flat on a cookie sheet.  It was placed in the mold and had a ring of cream piped around it.  The second step was to line the edge of the mold with strawberries that were cut in half.  The third step was to pipe cream in between the strawberries to hold them tight against the edge of the mold.

Step 3, Step 1, Step 2

After piping the cream in between the strawberries we went around and smoothed the cream up to the edge of the mold filling in any and all cracks.  The fifth step was to pipe a spiral of cream on top of the spongecake and the sixth step was to layer halved or quartered strawberries on top of the cream.

Step 4, Step 6, Step 5

After layering the strawberries the next step was to loosely fill in the top of the cake with more cream and then place a top layer of spongecake on top like a lid.  You push down the "lid" of the cake to firmly seal it up and then cover the cake with a very thin layer of cream almost like a crumbcoat and put it in the freezer to set.

Step 7, Step 8, Step 9

When the cakes had set we finished them with decorations of marshmallowy italian meringue.  We fired the meringue to make it extra tasty like perfectly roasted marshmallows and then decorated with strawberries and ground pistachios.  This could possibly be the BEST cake I've made so far.  I couldn't bring it home with me because I knew I'd end up eating the entire thing!

My Fraisier

All of the cakes in my class.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!