Chocolate Sponge Cake with Strawberries and Cream

This is a very delicious chocolate sponge cake filled with strawberries and cream, that I made for my friend Iza's birthday barbecue :)

Ingredients for a 24cm baking tin

9 eggs
160 g of sugar
160 g of flour
120 g of corn flour
4 tablespoons of baking powder
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
vanilla extract

at least 750 g of strawberries (the more the better really)
1 litre of double cream
250 g of icing sugar
vanilla extract
smooth strawberry jam
fruit tea (strawberry preferably)

Separate the eggs and whisk up the egg whites. In another bowl, cream together the egg yolks and the sugar until very pale and light. Add the vanilla extract. Combine the flours and the baking powder with the cocoa powder and sift in. Fold in carefully, making sure the mixture is combined but not over mixing it so that you don’t lose all the air. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper at the bottom and butter on the sides and pour in the batter. Bake in the preheated oven at 180° C for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake cool down before you cut it into 3 parts.

Wash the strawberries and cut off the green bits. Whip up the double cream with icing sugar and the vanilla extract (add in as much as you like, I added in 2 teaspoons). Either cut the strawberries in half now and this way you could lay a layer of strawberries and put the cream on top or cut the strawberries into small pieces and mix in with the cream. Remember to set some cream aside for decoration purposes. Assemble the cake: place a layer onto your serving plate, soak with the fruit tea, spread the smooth strawberry jam on top (a very thin layer) and either put the strawberries on top and then the cream or the cream-strawberry mixture. Place the next layer onto the first one and repeat the process. Place the last layer on top and just soak it with the fruit tea before spreading the cream without the strawberries on top and around the sides of the cake. Decorate with some strawberries if you left some at the beginning, or simply pipe some nice decorations :) Enjoy!

Can you spot the 20? :D