Strawberry Shortcake

INGREDIENTS:

Sponge cake:
3 eggs seperated (yolks and white)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup water
2 tsp vanilla essence

Strawberry mousse
1 pack of instant strawberry mousse ( I used Dr.Oetker's strawberry supreme)

Filling and Garnishing:
2 cups of whipped cream icing ( you will find the recipe in earlier blog posts)
1/2 lb fresh strawberries thinly sliced

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl and keep aside. Beat 3 egg yolks in an electric mixer at high speed for about 1 minute. Add 3/4 cup sugar, beating constantly till the egg yolks are thick. Then add vanilla and 1/4 cup water with it, beating at low speed till it blends well. To this, add flour mixture and blend well at low speed. Keep it aside.

Beat egg whites in a bowl at room temperature at high speed till they are foamy. Slowly add rest of the sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Slowly stir the egg mixture into the cake batter gently folding with a rubber spatula moving in the same direction until the mixture is well blended in the batter. Dont stir too much as it will take out the air out of the cake batter and the cake wont spring up much. To make the sponge cake fluffy, retain the air in the mixture as much as possible. Pour the batter into a greased 10 pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes till cake springs back when touched lightly in the center. Let it cool down.

ASSEMBLING THE CAKE:
Till the cake cools down, prepare the strawberry mousse as per the instructions on the pack and keep it ready. Cut the cake in midway and put the strawberry mousse over the lower half of the cake spreading it with the spatula reaching over to the sides. Arrange half of the cut strawberries over the mousse. Put the upper half of the cake over this layer and frost it with the whipped cream. For the borders I used the star tip (#22) and created some shells diagonally all over. Add the reamaining cut strawberries to the top of the cake. Let the cake chill for around 4-6 hours before serving. Overnight chilling gives the best results.