International Recipe: Finnish Strawberry Cream Cake

Interested in cooking tasty meals from around the world? Follow our International Recipe series featuring au pair chefs kind enough to share their favorite recipes from back home!
Name: Aino Leppanen
Home country: Finland
“My favorite Finnish dish is very traditional birthday cake. In America, it is common to put jam, chocolate or frosting into cakes but in Finland, we make a fresher and more healthy version. This cake has always been very important to me since it’s a cake that we always bake in my family whenever someone has a birthday. I’ve become the master decorator in the family.”
Cake ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup lowfat milk
• 2 cups wheat flour
• 1/2 cup potato flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Filling and frosting ingredients:

• 15 cups strawberries
• 6 cups whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• 1 cup jellifying sugar
• 2 cups berry juice

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees and grease and flour a cake tin.
2. Mix the first 4 cake ingredients together.
3. Mix the dry cake ingredients together.
4. Mix everything together.
5. Pour the mixture into the cake pan, smooth the surface and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.
6. Cut the cooled cake into three rounds with a sharp knife.
7. Cut and slice half the strawberries.
8. Whip the cream until stiff and sweeten it with a little bit of sugar and vanilla powder.
9. Moisten the bottom cake slice with milk or juice and pile up the sliced strawberries and whipped cream on top. Do the same with the remaining layers.
10. Cool the cake in the fridge for at least a few hours.
11. To decorate the cake, frost the outside with whipped cream and use remaining berries and other treats such as other fruit, candy, chocolate, nuts or edible flowers to make it look beautiful.
12. Serve right away and enjoy!

“I made this cake for my host family here and they loved it.”
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