Strawberry sponge cake

Ingredients

- 200g unsalted butter, at room temperature

- 200g caster sugar

- 4 medium eggs, at room temperature

- 200g self raising flour

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 300ml fresh double cream, or 300ml fresh whipping cream

- approx. 500g of freshly picked strawberries

- icing sugar

Instructions

- First you need to bake a sponge cake.

- Preheat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas mark 6/392F/moderate. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and cream together until pale and fluffy (about 5 minutes).

- In another bowl lightly beat the eggs.

- Slowly add the eggs to the butter-sugar mixture mixing at low speed, add 1tsp of vanilla.

- Once the eggs and butter-sugar mixture are combined, slowly mix in self raising flour.

- Grease a baking tin with butter, cut a piece of greaseproof paper to fit inside. Optional: if you run out of greaseproof paper, grease the tin with butter and cover it with breadcrumbs.

- Using a small palette knife fill the baking tin evenly with the mixture.

- Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Test the sponge cake with a thin knife. It should come out clean when the cake is baked.

- Allow the sponge cake to cool on a wire rack. Take a knife and cut off the top of the cake to get a flat surface.

-Mix the cream (in this case - I prefer double cream because it gets much stiffer than whipping cream). Spoon a few tablespoons of the cream on the cake and use a small palette knife to level and smooth the surface.

- Wash the strawberries in cold water and cut every strawberry into quarters. Cover the whole surface with strawberries and sprinkle with icing sugar.

- Use as many strawberries as you can to cover all the cake's surface.

- Before serving this yummy strawberry cake chill it in a refrigerator for 15 minutes to allow the cream to become firmer.