Strawberry and rose mini cakes

Soft, golden little vanilla sponges with swirls of strawberry and rose, filled with a velvety and delicately sweet vanilla whipped crème fraîche and fresh bites of strawberry macerated in sugar and rose water.

The flavours here are quite simple and beautifully delicate, with the aromatic flavour of rose bringing out the beautiful floral notes of the sweet, ripe strawberries. The swirl of the cake mixtures is done simply by alternating between each when pouring into the cake tins, and the result is a lovely little surprise when you cut into the cake. I love mixing crème fraîche with whipped cream, especially when paired with strawberries, because I think it lends a lovely subtle tang and brightness, which works wonderfully to balance out the sweetness in the cakes.

Mini cakes are always fun to make and decorate, and are the perfect size both for one generous helping, and for two to share. For these cakes, I used the 3inch cake tins by PME. The recipe makes 4x 3inch cakes, however if you don’t have these tins or don’t want to buy them, you can also make the recipe as 2x layered 6inch cake. Note that if doing the latter, you may need to increase by baking time by 5-10 minutes.