Snow White Cake with Strawberries

For the marble dough you will need a baking sheet of 35x24cm, if yours is bigger, you can create a wall/strip for your baking sheet using karton and wrapping aluminium foil around it. Line with parchment paper and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Then beat the eggs with the sugar for a minutes until lighter in color and thicker in consistency. Add oil and 180 grams of the milk and mix again. Add flour, baking powder and salt and only mix until homogeneous. Spread half of the batter into the prepared baking sheet. Add cocoa powder and 40 more grams of milk to the remaining batter, spread on top of the vanilla batter. Now wash strawberries and cut into slices. Place these onto the chocolate batter, you can press them down slightly. Bake for around 30 minutes. An inserted toothpick should come out clean.

While the cake is baking, make the buttercream. First take out the butter to get to room temperature. Then heat the milk and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil. Meanwhile stir the cornstarch with some more milk in a mug until now lumps remain. Add the cornstarch and take milk off heat, stir constantly, then put back on medium heat and let bubble for about a minute. It should become a custard. At the end, add the vanilla extract and the egg yolk if using. The egg yolk makes the custard creamier. Since this is a decadent cake, I like to add it, but it is up to you. Transfer the custard to another bowl so it cools off quicker. Place plastic wrap on the surface so no skin forms and let come to room temperature. I usually speed up the process by placing into the fridge.

Once the custard and butter have the same temperature, beat the butter for a few minutes and then add the custard by the spoonful. If it gets soupy, your custard was too hot. Pop into the fridge before continuing. If it is curdled, your environment is too cold, heat a small part of the buttercream in the microwave or on the stovetop, then add back in and continue. Once you have a creamy cream, fold in the strawberries chopped in smaller pieces. Spread evenly onto the cake and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour or overnight so that the cream can become sturdy.

Then melt the chocolate with the fat and spread evenly onto the cake. If the cake is chilled, it should only take a few minutes to harden. Place additional strawberries on top to your liking (see pictures). If you omit the strawberries on the top, this cake can be frozen. I recommend freezing single pieces tightly wrapped in plastic foil.