Strawberry layered cake

A Birthday special!!
This came from a German "Erdbeertorte" recipe.
I improvised with the layers and topped everything with whipped cream and strawberries.

Cake base

90g Butter
6 Eggs
175g Sugar
150g Flour

Layers

First layer
250g cream cheese
100g butter room temperature
180g icing sugar
3 drops of vanilla extract
crushed up smarties (or any chocolate)

Second layer
2 Bananas mashed
1 teaspoon icing sugar

Topping
400ml of whipped cream
100g strawberries sliced
50g ground walnuts sprinkled


First to make the cake base. Butter the cake tin and set aside. Melt the butter for 20 seconds in the microwave.
Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites in two different mixing bowls.
Add the sugar to the egg yolks and mix whilst the mixing bowl is floating in a pan of hot water and whisk until creamy.
Take the white creamy egg yolk mixture out of the pan and gently pour in the flour.
Add the butter to the egg yolk mixture and stir.

Whisk the egg whites in a second bowl until thick (make sure the hand mixer is dry and clean, if any oil or water gets in contact with the mixer it will make it much harder to get to a thick consistency). You should be able to turn the bowl upside down without anything falling out. (See photo on the right).

Add a third of the egg white mixture to the creamy egg yolk mixture, carefully fold in. |Then add the remaining egg whites.Gently stir it will together.

Pour the cake batter into the cake tin (photo on the right) and place into the 180C preheated oven for approximately 35 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and take a knife an loosen the cake edges from the tin.
The cake can now easily be removed from the tin.

I prebaked my cake and left it in the fridge for one day and a night, and surprisingly it still tasted so fresh and soft (it may even be better than eating it straight away, plus it also makes it easier to cut into slices). But if you are going to prepare the cake straight away let it cool for at least an hour .

Cut the base into three slices of the same thickness.
To make the first layer, mix cream cheese, melted butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract together until smooth. Add the grated chocolate or Smarties. :) Then stir to blend in.

With a knife spread the cream cheese layer onto the bottom base. Then Place another base on top of that.
Mash up the two bananas, and spread on the next layer, sprinkle with icing sugar to keep the sweet taste.
Place the last cake slice on top.
Finally whisk the cream adding 3 drops of vanilla extract, until thick.
Starting in the middle on the top, fold out a large amount of whipped cream onto the cake (it might help if you place the whipped cream in the fridge for 10 minutes to thicken up), using the blunt side of the knife, spread whipped cream on the cake and around the edges until smooth. Place the strawberries on top. Finally sprinkle some icing sugar on top followed by some ground walnuts.

Little taste of heaven :)
Enjoy :)