Strawberry Shortcake

I have a "cakes-to-make" list which changes from time to time, and the strawberry shortcake made it to my list a week or two ago. I got quite excited thinking about it then; and ended up buying a Japanese recipe book with step-by-step instructions on how to make this cake - apparently a default birthday cake and all-time favourite for many Japanese :) I couldn't really find high-fat whipping cream in local supermarkets though; and made do with the typical one I see in NTUC. Thankfully it whipped up relatively nicely (though not that perfect still) and to my surprise, someone placed an order for one the day I uploaded the above photo to FB. 

First - you bake the sponge cake and slice it into either 2 or 3 layers. I tried slicing it into three layers, but wasn't very skilful and ended up spoiling one (it was sliced too thinly). So I ended up with a 2-layer cake :) I'd probably just do 2 layers henceforth, till I become really skilful at this. Korean strawberries seemed to be in season, and I happily halved these for the sandwich cream layer :)

My freshly-creamed strawberry shortcake. It's quite a bit of a challenge to cream whipped cream onto a cake at room temperature - and Singapore's hot and humid climate certainly doesn't help. I tried to do everything as quickly as possible; as whipped cream when exposed to warmer temperatures disintegrates pretty easily (ie. separates into cream blobs and water). I'd probably cream this with my air-con on the next time. 

I didn't want to waste my 'spoilt' cake layer; and used it to create a glass of deconstructed strawberry shortcake for tea!

And here's a peek at the inside of the strawberry shortcake - the knife work could have been better, but am already relatively satisfied with my first try. Hopefully it will look just as nice/ even better when I make it the next time!