Cleveland Cassata Cake

One of my coworkers was scheduled to work on her birthday and I offered to make her birthday cake. She told me her favorite cake was a cassata cake and having never heard of a cassata cake, I went home after work and researched what one was. Little did I know that there was a Cleveland Cassata cake which differentiates itself from a traditional Cassata cake by one, being from Cleveland and not Sicily and two, its cakier and does not contain candied citrus. So, after much research I learned that I needed a 4-layer sponge cake, custard, enough strawberries to make thick delicious layers of sweet fruit and a whipped cream frosting.

In order to make this cake, you will need the following tools:

1 large mixing bowl
1 medium mixing bowl
An electric mixer unless you can beat egg whites by hand - I do not have that kind of patience or talent.
1 small sauce pan
1 whisk
A bread knife or a long serrated pastry knife
Two 9-inch cake pans, lightly greased and lined with parchment or wax paper

As for ingredients, you won't need anything fancy but you will need large quantities of a few items and a couple things you may not have in your pantry:

11 eggs
3 pounds of strawberries
cream of tartar
a lemon
3 pints of heavy cream

Making this cake will take two phases, preparation of building materials the night before and assembly the next morning. You will also have to be careful with your eggs. You must have 8 egg whites separated, 5 egg yolks separated and 6 eggs yolks separated for different parts to the recipe. 

To start preheat your oven to 325 degrees then you will have to make the custard:

6 egg yolks
1 pint of heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tbsp of cornstarch

Pour the pint of heavy cream and teaspoon of vanilla into the small sauce pan, add 1/2 cup of sugar and cornstarch. Add the yolks to the cream mixture and whisk over low heat until a thick custard forms. Cover and cool in the fridge overnight.

Next make the cake.

2 & 1/4 cups of sifted flour
1 & 1/4 cups of sugar
1 tbsp of baking powder
1 tsp of salt

Mix together the dry ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the following wet ingredients:

5 egg yolks
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
3/4 cup of cold water
1 tsp of lemon zest
1 tsp of vanilla

Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. It will be quite thick when all the dry ingredients are added. Next, with an electric mixer whisk the 8 egg whites that you reserved with 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. Add 1/3 of the whipped eggs whites to the batter and gently fold them in until they're fully incorporated then fold in remaining egg whites. It is important that you fold them in gently and completely because if you mix them roughly, the egg whites will deflate and the cake won't be spongy and light it will be like a brick and if you don't incorporate them completely, you'll wind up with lumps of egg whites in your sponge cake.

Pour batter evenly into the two lightly greased and lined cake pans. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes depending on your oven, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 1 hour before running a knife around the edge, removing and wrapping in saran wrap. Place wrapped layers in the fridge overnight. This will allow the layers to become extra firm so that they're easier to slice in half horizontally.

Next wash and slice the 3 pounds of strawberries (I reserved a few slice and 3 strawberries to decorate the top of the cake) and mix with 3 tablespoons of sugar. Refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, unwrap the layers of cake and gently, using the bread or pastry knife, slice each layer of cake into 2 layers, placing each layer on the saran wrap so it won't stick to any surfaces (This will make it easier to transfer to the layering process.). Next, place the first layer on your cake platter and spread a third of the custard over the cake, add a third of the strawberries and repeat with the next two layers: cake, custard and strawberries. Then top it off with the fourth layer of cake. Whip the 2 pints of heavy cream with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 2 tablespoons of sugar. This may look like way more whipped cream that you'll need but I tried making it with a single pint of heavy cream and it was barely enough. This way, you'll have enough whipped cream to completely cover the cake and some to do some fancy flourishes without it looking like the last picture in the blog.

Then either dig in or let it sit for a few hours in the fridge so the strawberry juices will soak into the cake layers. Either way, its a delicious dessert that I hope you enjoy.