Blueberry Fresh Cream Cake

My friend Lily requested for a fresh fruit and cream cake for her birthday, something I haven't made for years ever since all that trans-fat brouhaha (all whipping creams have hydrogenated palm oil. Dairy creams are milk-based but don't give that volume and stiffness desirable for icing of cakes). Also, it is now harder to get Rich's Pour N Whip, which is the best-tasting whipping cream I've tried.

This cake was very stressful to make. The sponge cake turned out excellent but I had to ice the cake twice. The punnet of strawberries from Western Australia was the first to stress me. While the strawberries on top were as big as walnuts in their shell, the bottom ones were only thumb-sized. Hmm, I thought, the Australians are becoming very Asian. It's typical here (and I think in most Asian countries) to pack the best-looking prawns, or lamb chops or whatever on top and then underneath you get the rubbish. Then I saw 'Packed by Hoaung Le Produce' or something like that. Vietnamese grocers obviously.

My regular cake ingredients shop lady recommended Rich's Dessert Topping, a new product that's low in sugar and "very smooth". Rich's Dessert Topping is such a horrible product, I urge you to avoid it! The first thing bad about it is the sickening margariny flavor. Then the texture. It is a very smooth whip but it tastes like wax!!! And that's not all. As I piped the cream rosettes, the cake started to sag. It was melting, and yesterday wasn't even hot. When I looked at it in the fridge later, the icing around the cake looked like a silly balloon skirt. Panic. Dinner in 2 hours.

I raced to another shop, got Rich's Whip Topping Base and scraped off as much of the first cream as possible. What a terrible waste, because I had put in a whole bottle of Dalfour's mixed berry preserves. However, I'm happy to report that the cake turned out very very good even though Rich's Whip Topping Base is another suspicious product. It just doesn't melt, and is so stiff, I couldn't make pointy pipings because it just breaks off. And I could even pick up and re-arrange the piped cream because they were so firm. It was weird.


Slice of same cake photographed in daylight

To make this cake, you just spread the middle layers with 1/3 of the whipped cream and spread a thin layer of blueberries preserves on that, then mix in some mashed blueberry preserves into the remaining cream and use it to ice the top and side of the cake. I used frozen blueberries on top. It's cheaper than fresh but you must thaw it completely on kitchen paper or it'll bleed onto the cake. Finally glaze the fruits with a thin layer of piping jelly. Ask me if you need help.