Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake

INGREDIENTS
Serves: 8

• 125 grams plain flour
• 25 grams cornflour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• 100 grams very soft unsalted butter
• 300 grams caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 50 grams flaked almonds
• 375 millilitres double cream
• 250 grams strawberries

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Line, butter and flour 2 x 22cm Springform tins.
2. Weigh out the flour, cornflour and baking powder into a bowl.
3. Cream the butter and 100g of the caster sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into the butter and sugar, saving the whites to whisk later. Gently fold in the weighed-out dry ingredients, add the vanilla, and then stir in the milk to thin the batter. Divide the mixture between the two prepared Springform tins.
4. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add the remaining 200g caster sugar. Spread a layer of meringue on top of the sponge batter in each tin, and sprinkle the almonds evenly over.
5. Bake for 30–35 minutes, by which time the top of the almond-scattered meringues will be a dark gold. Let the cakes cool in their tins, then spring them open at the last minute when you are ready to assemble the cake.
6. Whip the double cream, and hull and slice the strawberries; that’s to say, the bigger ones can be sliced lengthways and the smaller ones halved. Invert one of the cakes on to a plate or cakestand so that the sponge is uppermost. Pile on the cream and stud with the strawberries, letting some of the berries subside into the whipped whiteness. Place the second cake on top, meringue upwards, and press down gently, just to secure it.
7. If you’ve got any more strawberries in the house, hull and halve them, and serve them in a dish on a table to eat alongside; it gives the cake a more after-lunch, less afternoon-tea kind of a feel, but it’s hardly obligatory.

not mine.credit and owner: NIGELLA