strawberry cream cake

In my quest last year to a recipe for the perfect vanilla cake (for my friend Helen's baby shower cake), I tried out one for America's Test Kitchen's strawberry cream cake.  The recipe described the cake as a "chiffon-style cake that combined the rich flavor of a butter cake with the light-yet-sturdy texture of a sponge cake", which sounded perfect!

Like a chiffon cake, the recipe called for folding in whipped egg whites into the cake batter, to give the cake a light and airy texture.

When it came out of the oven, the cake was definitely light, yet sturdy at the same time.  So I sliced it in half horizontally, and then layered on the whipped cream and fresh strawberries, and included sliced strawberries inside the ring of halved strawberries (which is not pictured here).
Note: the recipe actually called for mashing the strawberries and cooking it down with kirch in a saucepan, but I skipped that step.

Then came more whipped cream, followed by the second half of the cake layer, then another layer of whipped cream, and fresh strawberries to decorate the top of the cake.

Although I didn't end up using this cake recipe for the baby shower, I thought the cake was actually pretty good, and kept well in the fridge without hardening.  And who can go wrong with strawberries and whipped cream!