Fresh Strawberry Filling

By LoriCaputo

Ingredients

• Filling - 2 pints strawberries (fresh berries only)
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tblsp lemon juice(fresh)
• 2 tblsp cornstarch
• 1 tblsp kirsch (cherry liqueur, get at wine shop)
• Syrup - 2/3 cup water
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 tblsp lemon juice (fresh)
• 2 tblsp kirsch

Preparation

Step 1

1. To make the filling, rinse, hull and slice the 2 pints of strawberries. Place a quarter of the berries in a saucepan with the sugar and bring to a boil. In a bowl, combine the lemon juice, kirsch and cornstarch and stir together till smooth. Take the saucepan of berries off the heat and stir the cornstarch mixture into it. Return to the heat and bring back to a boil, stirring and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, cool and then stir in the remaining sliced berries.
2. To make the syrup, combine the water and sugar in a small saucepan, bring to a boil, and cool. Stir in the lemon juice and kirsch when the syrup is cool.


To assemble your cake….
Place a cake layer on a cardboard round and brush with half of the syrup. Pipe a dam of your buttercream around the outer edge of the cake layer, then spread with a layer of the strawberries. Repeat with the next layer and remaining syrup if your cake has been torted adding filling again.

The purpose of the syrup is to keep your cake moist.

I usually torte my layers so that I have 4 cake layers for each tier cake. I place the strawberry filling on the bottom layer, then I do a layer of buttercream and then a layer of strawberries and top with last cake layer. This way you will have 4 cake layers and 3 filling layers (2 red from berries and 2 white from buttercream), It looks good when cut.

This amount of filling is enough for 9-inch 2-layer cake that is torted into 4 cake layers.

Adjust it accordingly for larger portions
Do use the syrup on the middle layer that has the buttercream only.
Just remember to pipe the dam around your cake layers, otherwise you will have a major leak of the filling, not pretty.
Also, I make sure that the boiled and thickened part of the filling is cold before I mix in the remainder of the sliced berries. You could wait to slice the berries, until your are ready to mix it up. Less juices form.