Fruitcake
Strawberries. Again. Maybe I should be calling this a FRUIT blog 
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My leftover strawberries – I had ambitions for them! I wanted to experiment with different cake shapes – a larger one, several small round ones – topped with homemade custard and then the strawberries nicely arranged on top. In the end, speed was the most important factor in making this cake. I still have some strawberries left, and also some puff pastry, so I might well experiment with the cute stuff later on. By the way, speed is also the reason why the pics really leave something to wish for this time. At 7 in the morning I didn’t think to check them immediately. Bit early for me to be doing that stuff, as when I was ready to leave for work I realised in a panic that I hadn’t even made my coffee to go…
As I said, I made this cake Monday morning at 7 am, because I wanted to take it to the office so it had to be as fresh as possible. The only ready-made ingredient I had planned on using was puff pastry. But in the end I also used custard powder, though I tried to spruce it up with puréed strawberries to give it some colour, and so it wouldn’t taste too artificial. That effort was quite in vain – after the first 2 tbsp of puréed strawberries I added to the custard, I decided not to add the rest because instead of making it look a nice pink colour, it made it look like something a cat would puke up!
If after reading this you still need or want to rustle up a quick cake, there’s no recipe for this – just take a sheet of puff pastry, pierce all over with a fork, and bake for 15 minutes at 200ºC on the middle shelf. Despite the piercing, my puff pastry bulged – not only in the middle, but all over. After it came out of the oven, I pierced it again so it flattened back (with a bit of force from the fork).
Then pour or spoon over the custard and arrange strawberries on top (quickly before custard starts to cool and build a skin). Ready.
This is nothing spectacular, but a good and quick way to use up leftover fruit and have a nice afternoon coffee treat.
