I was watching James Martin on tele and saw him make this simple yet so impressive cake. It’s the lazy entertainers perfect recipe that is sure to your friends singing your praises. You can use any berries really so long as they are sweet berries. I didn’t use the alcohol and the Strawbs I used were not sweet so I had to doctor them.

What you need

1 ready made, plain sponge cake (most supermarkets have them)
750ml cream
25g caster sugar
200ml custard (you can use ready made)
2-3 punnets strawberries

The process

Take the cake and divide it into 2 or 3 equal height discs with a bread knife.

Cut 2/3 of the strawberries in half and slice the last 1/3 for the top. Taste the strawberries and if they are not very sweet dust with a little extra caster sugar.

Whisk together the cream and 25g of the caster sugar until it has reached soft peaks.(When you remove the whisk from the bowl, the cream creates a peak and the top falls over) Mix in the custard with a metal spoon. Don’t over mix, you just want to distribute it evenly.

Place one of the cake disks onto a serving plate, cover with halved strawberries and then cover with the cream mixture.

Repeat 1 or 2 times depending on how many disks you have.

Cover the top with the remaining cream and the sliced strawberries.

Now that’s impressive!