Strawberries & Cream Chiffon Cake

Every year my siblings and I struggle to find a gift for our mum on Mother’s Day.

Perfume? She has millions of unused bottles lying around the house.

Flowers? She hates flowers (except orchids, but she has millions of those too!).

Jewellery? She doesn’t wear it.

Now, usually we shower her with boxes of chocolates… but this year she just HAD to give it up for Lent! Gah!

So naturally I baked a cake.

With strawberries and cream… because she inhales the stuff!

Happy Mother’s Day!!

Ingredients

170g plain flour

160 g caster sugar

2tsps baking powder

1tsp salt

70ml vegetable oil

4 eggs, separated

100ml cold water

1tsp vanilla extract

1tsp cream of tartar

284ml double cream

100g icing sugar

1 packet strawberries, halved

Method

Preheat oven to 160°C.

Line a 10 inch cake tin with baking parchment.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl.

In a second bowl, mix together the oil, egg yolks, water, and vanilla extract.

Gradually add the egg yolk mixture to the dry ingredients till you get a smooth batter.

In yet another bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until you form stiff peaks.

Add a dollop of the egg whites to the smooth batter and stir in to loosen the mixture. Then gradually fold in the rest of the egg whites, trying to keep as much air in the batter as possible.

Pour the batter into your cake tin and bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean from the centre.

Whilst the cake is cooling, whisk the double cream and icing sugar to stiff peaks.

Slice the cake in half and lay the strawberries on the bottom half. Spread the cream on top, then lay the top half of the cake on top. Dust with icing sugar and serve.