A French Strawberry Cake – Fraisier Recipe

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In this post: a Fraisier recipe which is a French strawberry cake. This post contains affiliate links.

I made a Fraisier once again this year!  The Fraisier is my favorite French dessert… what’s not to love about a strawberry cake?

 

We took the cake outside and ate it next to the blooming lavender!

On to the recipe – adapted from Laduree and Cakelets and Doilies.

This recipes makes either one 9″ cake or eight 3″ cakes.

This recipe has to chill overnight so you need to make it ahead of time. (Or make it very early in the morning so it can chill all afternoon)

Here is the printable version of the recipe.

Almond Génoise Cake

50 g (3 1/2 tbsp) butter , unsalted

200g (1 2/3 cup) cake flour

  6 eggs

200g (1 cup) granulated sugar

50g (1/2 cup) ground almonds or almond flour

1 1/2 tbsp butter

Making the Génoise cake

1. Melt the 1 1/2 tbsp butter and using a pastry brush, butter your cake pan.   Place the cake pan in the fridge to allow the butter to harden.(notes – if you are making mini cakes, you will want to bake your cake in a 12×8 rectangular cake pan)
2. In a small saucepan, melt the 50g of butter over low heat.
3. In a large heatproof mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and the sugar.
4. Preheat oven to 340F.  Place your heatproof mixing bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and whisk until the mixture is warm, thick and pale, and the mixture has tripled in volume (approximately 122F).  Then remove from the heat and keep mixing until the mixture is cool (notes – I could not get this thing to triple over the simmering water. So I just heated it, while stirring constantly, until it was 122F and then attached it to my kitchenaid mixer and let it whisk until it tripled in volume and the mixture was  completely cool).
5. Once completely cooled down, fold in the sifted flour into the mixture.  Then fold in the ground almonds.  And then the melted butter.
6. Lightly flour your cake pan and tap out an excess. Then immediately fill with batter and place in the oven. Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

Kirsch Syrup

100mL (1/2 cup – 1tbsp) water

100g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar

40mL (2 1/2 tbsp) kirsch liqueur (see notes below about kirsch)

Making the syrup

Combine the sugar and water into a small saucepan over medium heat.  Stir until the sugar dissolves. Allow to boil for just 5 seconds. Remove from the heat, let it cool, then stir in the kirsch liqueur.

Crème Mousseline

350g whole milk

100g granulated sugar

1/2 a vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped for inside beans/seeds

4 egg yolks

35g plain flour

200g unsalted butter, softened

1tbsp cherry liqueur (optional)

Making the creme

1. Place milk, vanilla bean and scraped seeds into a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Then remove from heat and set aside.
2. In another bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until mixture is pale yellow.  Mix int the flour until well combined.
3. Remove vanilla bean pod from milk mixture.  Then pour the hot milk into the egg mixture, constantly whisking to combine.
4. Then pour the whole mixture back into the saucepan and place over high heat.  Whisk constantly until it is thickened, smooth, and glossy.  Then remove from heat and transfer pastry cream to a plate. Immediately cover with plastic cling wrap and place into the freezer to cool but only for 10 minutes.  Do not allow it to freeze (If you don’t put the cling wrap on immediately, the pastry cream will get a film on it that’s lumpy and gross and you will have to strain it out later, so don’t miss this step)
5. While the cream is in the freezer, beat your butter until creamy.  Then when the pastry cream is about room temperature, add the cream to the butter and mix until while combined.   Add the liqueur.
6. Spoon the mousseline into a piping bag with 1cm piping tip.

Strawberry Gel

250g strawberries, washed and hulled

2g agar agar (or 1 tsp)

Blend the strawberries to a puree. Strain to remove the seeds – Place puree in sauce pan and sprinkle over the agar agar. Heal until boiling and stir until agar to dissolve.  Pour onto parchment paper and spread evenly. Place in fridge to set.

Assembly

1 pound of strawberries, cut in half and with the green tops removed.  (Save your cutest strawberries for the top and set them aside.  Also, smaller strawberries look cuter in the cake and are more sweet.  When you cut the berries, you want them to all be the same height).

Cake mold(s)

Assembling the cakes

Take your cooled sponge cake out of the baking pan. Optional – you may cut it in half so that you can have a layer on top and a layer on the bottom. I did not do that this year but I preferred it better so next time I will do it!  Now find your springform pan and place a circle of plastic cake wrap.  Then put the sponge cake.  Brush the cake with the kirsch syrup.  Arrange the strawberries around the edge of the cake ring with the flat edge facing the outside.  Pipe or spread the creme mousseline over the strawberries.  Then place another layer of sponge cake on top.  Put the gel on top.  Place in the fridge overnight. The following day, dip a strawberry into the kirsch syrup and put on top just before serving. Confession – I ate this cake several hours later after it had cooled. I am unsure if it really has to wait overnight.

Assembling the Fraisier: line your springform with strawberry halves. The pour the rest of the strawberries in the center. Then spread the mousseline cream evenly.

Materials I used to bake Le Fraisier (affiliate links)

Stand Mixer

Hand Mixer (I did not use it this time, but I will next time!)

Plastic cake wrap

Scale

Food coloring

Cake Sheet pan

3″x3″ Cake molds

9″ spingform

9″ cake pan

 So I’ll admit how I messed up.

The strawberry gel did not set how I wanted. I placed it on the foil and then it stuck to the foil.

Next time I either recommend placing in on parchment paper OR if you do the two laters of cake, just pour it directly onto the cake. I could not pour it directly on the cream here as it would have melted!

 But that’s okay. It still tasted pretty dang delicious!

We had a nice little evening here enjoying our cake al fresco.

Do you ever eat in your own garden?

My Baking Favorites:

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