I just made up a new phobia – furniahobia is the ‘fear of baking’ (from the Latin ‘to bake’). Yes its a pretty slow Saturday afternoon around here and kids are hogging the Playstation.

The problem with food blogging, however, is baked creations are often the most interesting. So in the interest of entertaining readers it seems fair enough to attempt that which can so easily go wrong. This time round I tried out a recipe I found in this winter’s London-based Good Food Show catalogue:

Fraisier Cake! This creation combines Genoese sponge with a crème patisserie filling finished with chocolate and strawberries.

As you can see there’s a lot that goes into this thing but what attracted me to Mary Berry’s recipe were the words ‘adapted’, ‘quicker’ and ‘easier’. Because here the crème patisserie is actually a combination of greek yoghurt, mascarpone and lemon juice – crème patisserie sounded like too much hassle to me.

For ‘Furniaphobics Fraiser Cake’ you will need:

For the Genoese sponge

• 4 eggs
• 125g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
• grated rind of 2 lemons
• 125g (1 cup) self raising flour
• 50g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the syrup

• juice of 2 lemons
• 75g  (1/3 cup) caster sugar

For the filling

• 250g (1 cup) full fat mascarpone cheese
• 400g (1 3/4 cups) full fat Greek yoghurt
• 1/2 jar (200g) lemon curd
• juice of 1 small lemon
• 400g (2 punnets) fresh strawberries

For the topping

• 200g (a pack) marzipan
• 2 bars plain chocolate

First off heat the oven to 180 centigrade. Butter and line a  9 inch tin with baking paper:

Now make the sponge; Put the eggs, caster sugar and lemon zest in a bowl:

Whisk until pale and thick:

Sieve the flour and fold into the mixture with a metal spoon until the flour is incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Add the soft butter and fold into the mixture:

Pour into the tin:

Cook for 25-30mins until the cake is lightly golden and shrinking away from the sides of the tin:

Leave to cool in the tin for 10mins, turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.

Meanwhile make the syrup. Pour the lemon juice into a pan, add the caster sugar and 70ml water and cook over a low heat stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil for 2mins:

Remove from the heat and set aside.

Now make the filling; beat the mascarpone in a bowl until smooth. Add the yoghurt, lemon curd and lemon juice:

Mix together until smooth. The mixture will thicken slightly when the lemon is added.

Slice the cake in half to create two discs:

Clean the tin and line the base and sides with cling film. Put one disc into the tin and brush over half the syrup. Slice 15 strawberries in half and arrange around the sides of the tin with the cut side facing out:

Spoon in the mascarpone filling and spread out evenly:

Sit the second disc of sponge on top of the filling and brush with the remaining syrup:

Roll the marzipan out and use another 9 inch tin to cut out a circle to sit on top of the cake:

Place

Place on top  of the cake and chill for 3 hours:

Now its time to finish this thing. Melt the chocolate and use to pipe over the marzipan or make decorations:

We made some additional shapes just in case:

Decorate the top with strawberries and chocolate shapes:

This cake made its way to a family gathering (my baby sister’s birthday). She and her fiance had just been to a chocolate event where they had been creating truffles and chocolate sauces:

And Chocolate Souffle:

My oldest nephew had been at it too, making white chocolate topped tiffin:

What did the Fraisier Cake look like inside? Would its contents hold together once sliced, or would it ooze out in a big sloppy mess?

Epic success! Mind you it was a bit lemony for my liking and the sponge was like any other sponge – still beats previous cake related creations I’ve attempted – cheers Mary B!