In contrast to many classics whose origins are misplaced within the mists of time, this cake is a comparatively latest invention, strawberries having arrived late on our plates. Certainly, regardless that strawberries have been identified since historic occasions, they have been not often consumed prior to now. It was not till the arrival of cultivars from the New American continent (specifically within the suitcases of the explorer Jacques Cartier) that we realised their flavour potential. Throughout the 18th century, experiments and cross-breeding have been carried out in England and Brittany (in Plougastel), giving rise to fashionable strawberries. These have been loved with cream and sugar for a very long time earlier than being launched into the world of pastry.
The emergence of the strawberry cream cake as we all know it immediately is expounded to the event of recent French patisserie within the twentieth century.
But it surely was in the course of the Sixties that the strawberry cream cake really took its remaining type, thanks specifically to the affect of Gaston Lenôtre. Within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, this dessert turned vital in French pastry retailers, particularly for vital events reminiscent of household celebrations, birthdays, and communions. Its ornament, usually completed with a skinny layer of almond paste, is a particular function of its identification.
And whereas the strawberry cream cake is a part of a wider custom of desserts primarily based on sponge cake and cream, inherited from basic French entremets, this cake places the fruit within the highlight. The pastry chef, relying on the area (and private style!), will select from the native strawberry varieties: Mara, Charlotte, Cléry, Gariguette, and Ciflorette are widespread. It’s all about selecting strawberries which can be ripe sufficient for his or her flavour to be at its finest.
And what goes finest with this fruit?
The famend mousseline cream, a key ingredient within the strawberry cream cake. Enriched with butter, this pastry cream is each agency and creamy, holding its form when reduce whereas melting within the mouth. Some pastry cooks flavour their mousseline cream with vanilla from Madagascar, others with rose or kirsch: there are virtually limitless potentialities, however the focus is at all times on the strawberry!
As for the biscuit layer, though sponge cake has been thought-about the usual for a very long time, fashionable pastry cooks now create variations like dacquoise or joconde biscuit, that are equally scrumptious and serve to boost this basic of our connoisseur heritage.
After all, the Relais Desserts members honour the strawberry cream cake with expertise.
Some provide very refined variations, with a deal with the fruit. Others add surprising touches: contemporary herbs, citrus zest, floral infusions. The strawberry cream cake is not only a basic – it’s turning into a supply of inspiration.
In Fontainebleau, Frédéric Cassel fills it with pistachio, the star nut of the second, mixed with a fragile almond biscuit.
In Lyon, Sébastien Bouillet creates a wealthy cream made with vanilla from Madagascar, and locations it on a gentle Genoa sponge.
In Angers at Artisan Passionné, Aurélien Trottier prepares a strawberry cream cake with an progressive and chic gluten-free design, garnished with a clean mascarpone-based cream.
These are only a few examples: all it’s good to do is check out the show circumstances of the Relais Desserts artisans in Might to comprehend that strawberry cream cake stays a pleasant space of expression, with limitless potentialities for modern patisserie.
