Special occasions call for a celebration - a gathering of beloved friends and family. It may be a birthday, anniversary, wedding, engagement, or other special celebration; a cocktail party, a BBQ, a fancy sit-down dinner, or whatever takes your fancy, but a special cake is a must! Add candles for a birthday or anniversary, and you're set for a sparkling time.
Baking family birthday cakes used to be my job, I even baked my own, as I love playing in the kitchen. However, I never had time to learn the art of sugar craft. My children's cakes were assembled by cutting a square or round cake into segments to make themed cakes like Humpty Dumpty, Choo-choo Train, and so forth.
All this came to a halt when Mom fell ill, and soon thereafter hubby.
I've however been inspired to get back to playing in the kitchen. Food blogging was my passion when I first joined the blockchain over seven years ago, and I'm so glad to be back. My employees, and guests, have all been happy as well, as I cannot eat all the sweet treats I've been making of late, all by myself!
The awesome Plant Power Community is celebrating Third Anniversary with a Brand New PLANT BASED challenge: A Birthday Cake! (Third Anniversary) and I was inspired to bake a delicious Strawberry & Passionfruit Gateau - two layers of a vanilla sponge cake, with two fillings: lemon zest/vanilla cream and a passionfruit sauce, and topped with a slightly sweet vanilla mock-cream, garnished with plump red strawberries.
𝙇𝙚𝙩'𝙨 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙗𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜!
I will take you on a journey into my kitchen, so roll up your sleeves as we have a load of work to do!
I'm camera shy but have to follow the rules, so periodically called my employee Bonginkosi inside, and he managed to get a smile out of me;)
Fooling around a little
Ingredients required
𝙑𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚
Pictorial steps - detailed steps on recipe card
Note I sifted the dry ingredients three times to incorporate as much air as possible
Be careful as the lemon juice froths up quickly when baking soda is added - stir and fold into batter
Pour into 2 round cake pans - note batter will have small bubbles, handle carefully
Bake as per recipe card
As you can see, I did not use springform pans, so had quite a juggling act with inverting onto a plate and back onto a wire rack
𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 & 𝙏𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜
Preparing Lemon Zest/ Vanilla Cream
Preparing passionfruit filling and dessert cream for the final assembly
𝘼𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙂𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙪
Pictorial Instructions
Finally starting to look like a cake!
Place on a serving plate and cover the entire cake with fluffy dessert cream, score with the edge of a knife
Decorate with fresh Strawberries
𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝘾𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙋𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧'𝙨 3𝙧𝙙 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙙𝙖𝙮
Anyone for a slice?
𝙃𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙮 3𝙧𝙙 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙋𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮!
Pssst. almost forgot, I need to invite a friend to enter, so...how about it 
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𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙩 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩
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