Strawberry Sponge Cake with Vanilla Custard

We have less than a week until daylight saving to officially end summer. Although Madame Summer had made a detour from Auckland this year as she didn't feel like drenching us with her glorious sunshine and humid sticky nights. See you around next time!

Usually our household of 2 will have bottomless supply of strawberries in summer but that was cut short due to the rainy season and strawberries were much forgotten together with her friend the watermelon.

Anyway, I made a gorgeous strawberry cake before all the strawberries vanished and thought it may be great to share the recipe here. The sponge recipe is just a small tweak on the wonderful Annabel Langbein's lemon cake recipe I've posted before and I halved the ingredients to fit a smaller 20cm cake tin. I halved the cake and spread a layer of custard.

If you are like me who doesn't like it too sweet, reduce the sugar. My hubs likes it that way but I do find it a little too sweet because the recipe was originally for a lemon cake and omitting the lemon juice makes the cake sweeter.

Recipe:

For cake:

2 eggs

375 ml unflavoured yogurt 

1 cup sugar ( you can add an extra 1/2 cup

2 cups self rising flour

1 cup neutral oil ( I used rice bran oil)

a pinch of salt

For vanilla custard

1 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 whole vanilla pod or 1/2 tsp ground vanilla
6 free-range egg yolks
a pinch of salt

For strawberry topping (mix and refrigerate)
1 punnet (approx 250gm) strawberries
Juice from 1 lemon
2 tbsp caster sugar

1.To make custard,use a saucepan to heat milk in medium heat until it bubbles slightly and then add in 1 vanillar pod/ 1 tsp ground vanilla. Remove from heat and let the vanilla pod steep in a for while.

2.In a saucepan, stir remaining ingredients for vanilla custard and gradually add in warm milk. Simmer over low heat and stir with a wooden spoon to prevent from sticking. You can also use a whisk to prevent lumps. Remove from heat and let it cool.

3. For the cake, mix all the cake ingredients beginning with the liquids in a food processor or a large mixing bowl before adding the flour. Give it a gentle stir and don't overdo it, just enough that the ingredients are well mixed together.

4. Line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper and pour in the cake mix.

5. Bake at 160c for 90 minutes. I used Fan Bake on my oven because it's not very hot and losing heat through the broken seals.

6. Once finished, remove from oven and let it cool. Do not attempt to get it out of the tin or the cake will crack (advice to amateurs like myself).

9. Wash and cut strawberries and mix with lemon juice and sugar. Refrigerate until you need it.

8. You may want to halve the cake to create an extra layer but if you don't, it's fine. Just spread the cooled vanilla custard with a spatula on the cake and decorate with strawberries or any other summer berries.

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