Directions

• White chocolate cream
• Place the finely chopped white chocolate in a medium bowl.
• Put 70ml of double cream in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat (alternatively, you can warm it up in a microwave).
• Once it is starting to simmer, take it off the heat.
• Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and stir until the consistency is homogenous.
• Let it cool down to room temperature and then cover with the cling film.
• Place in the fridge for at least 1 hour (the colder it is, the better).
• Strawberry compote
• Place the roughly chopped strawberries, caster sugar, lemon juice and the empty vanilla pot in a small saucepan, mix well.
• Place over the medium heat and bring to boil.
• Reduce the heat to minimum and simmer for about 20min stirring regularly until the compote thickens.
• Skim the foam throughout the process (this will make the consistency clearer).
• Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Don’t forget to remove the empty vanilla pod!
• Sponge
• Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C Fan/Gas Mark 3. Line up a medium baking tray (around 35cm x 20cm) with baking parchment.
• The sponge batter needs to be mixed over a heat source, that will help egg mixture to increase its volume.
• Pour enough water into a medium saucepan so that it rises about 5cm up the sides.
• The bowl from your electric mixer, or just an ordinary heat resistant bowl, should fit in the saucepan and sit over the water without touching it.
• Bring the water to boil, then reduce to simmer.
• To make the sponge, place the bowl on the simmering saucepan and add the eggs, sugar, vanilla seeds and lemon zest.
• Whisk continuously using a hand whisk for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is frothy, creamy and warm.
• Remove the bowl from the heat and continue whisking with an electric mixer.
• Whisk on a high speed until the mixture has tripled in volume and is no longer warm.
• In the meantime, melt the butter and set aside to cool.
• Combine the flour and salt in a bowl and sift it twice (don’t skip this step, since this recipe relies on simple flavours, the texture of the sponge really matters).
• When the egg mixture has tripled in volume and is no longer warm, sift half the flour (yes, a third sift!) directly over the mixture and gently fold it in with a spatula until homogeneous.
• Sift the remaining flour over the mixture and fold in again.
• Drizzle the cooled, melted butter down the sides of the bowl.
• Fold in carefully to incorporate.
• Transfer the batter into a baking tin.
• Place it in the preheated oven and bake for 25min, until the colour has turned light golden brown and the sponge springs back when lightly pressed in the middle.
• Take it from the oven and set aside to cool for 20 minutes in the tin.
• Remove the sponge from the tin and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Take a cookie cutter (the diameter depends on how big your cakes want to be, we used 8cm).
• Assembly
• Take your chocolate cream and double cream from the fridge and combine. Whip it until thick, but don’t over beat it, it should just stick to the whisk.
• Cut the cylinders in half transversally. Spread a generous spoonful of the cream on the bottom part of the sponge, add strawberry compote and place the sliced strawberries on top.
• Cover with the remaining half of the sponge and dust with icing sugar to serve. We hope you like it!