ingredients:

Yellow Chiffon Cake
6 egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
3 t baking powder
pinch of salt

Whipped Cream
4 T sugar, divided
2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold and divided
1 t gelatin
1 T water
1 pint strawberries (+ kiwis, canned peaches, etc.)

instructions:

Cake: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the egg whites in a bowl and use an electric mixer to beat them until soft peaks begin to form.

Once this happens, gradually add 1/2 cup sugar while mixing until stiff peaks form.(this might take awhile, so be patient)

Set aside. In another bowl, mix the egg yolks, vegetable oil, water, and vanilla together.

Set aside. In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, and 1 cup sugar.

Mix the egg yolk mixture with the dry ingredient mixture till smooth. Then gently fold in the egg white/sugar mixture.

Gently pour the mixture into nonstick sprayed or parchment paper lined 8 in. cake pans and smooth the tops. (make sure to do this step! or your cakes will turn out like mine did!) Bake the pans for around 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean and the top springs back when you press on it. (DO NOT open the oven to check on the cakes, or they will shrink/deflate. turn the oven light on, or wait the full 25 minutes)

Remove the cake from the pan and let cool on a wire rack.

(boohoo, the bottom middle kinda stuck..)

Strawberries: Wash and dry the strawberries. Cut off the leaf portion of the berries. Keep a few prettier strawberries to top the cake (6 for a 6-inch cake, 8 for an 8 inch cake) and set them aside for now. Take the rest of the berries and thinly slice them.

Whipped Cream: Chill two large metal bowls and your beaters in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Place the teaspoon of gelatin and tablespoon of water in a pan. Mix and let sit for 5 minutes. In the meantime, pour 1 cup of heavy whipping cream and 2 T sugar in the chilled metal bowl. Beat on high power until you get soft peaks. Stop.

Heat your pan of gelatin and water over low heat until it turns liquid and the gelatin is just dissolved in the water (it should be warm, not hot, if hot, let cool a little). Scrape this liquid into your whipped cream. Continue beating the cream until stiff peaks form. Then stop, cover this with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Next, in the other chilled bowl, add 1 cup of heavy cream with 2 T sugar. Beat on high until you get stiff peaks in the cream. This cream without gelatin will be used first when assembling the cake layers.

Take your two cake rounds and cut them in half (parallel to the plane of the cake round) so you end up with four thinner cake rounds. Place one cake round on a round piece of parchment paper. Cover it with a layer of whipped cream. Add a layer of sliced strawberries. Cover the strawberries with another layer of whipped cream. (do not put too much whipped cream on the inner layers, you’ll need some for when you’re done assembling the layers!)

Place a cake round on top of the whipped cream. Repeat until you finish with putting the fourth cake round on top of a whipped cream layer. At this point, you can cover the cake with plastic wrap to refrigerate the cake to decorate later, or you can finish the cake.

Next, to finish decorating, cover the entire cake with a thin layer of whipped cream to trap all the cake crumbs (the whipped cream you just made). Then wipe off your spatula and cover the cake with a thicker layer of whipped cream so that no cake is showing through.

Place a shell or star tip in a plastic piping bag and spoon the gelatin whipped cream into the bag. Pipe a border on the top and bottom edge of the cake.
Then, for a 6-inch cake, pipe six evenly spaced circles on the top of the cake, near the edge. For an 8-inch cake, pipe 8 circles. Finally, place a whole strawberry in the center of each piped circle and you’re done. Serve or keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Phew! 3 hours later and you’re done!

And the result is......

*drum roll*

TADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA :>