Behind the Recipes: French Strawberry Cake

With layers of golden sponge cake sandwiching creamy filling and perfect strawberries (“fraise” means strawberry), and often sporting a neat, pale-green marzipan lid, le fraisier heralds the arrival of summer.

Though it has much in common with the casual strawberry shortcake, a fraisier is a more refined affair, exemplifying the characteristics of not just France’s cuisine but also its fashion: visually simple, yes, but thoughtfully designed and meticulously constructed. 

Though the French have cultivated exquisite strawberries for centuries, the gâteau fraisier dates only to the 1960s, when chef Gaston Lenôtre devised a prototype that has been widely riffed upon.

It featured a Joconde cake, an almond sponge that relies solely on whipped egg whites for lift. Naturally firm and a bit dry, the cake is usually soaked with a syrup (often boozy) to boost its flavor and tenderness.

The cream filling is a cooked custard—either fluid crème anglaise or pudding-like crème pâtissière—that’s cooled and whipped with butter or cream. Only the best strawberries fill the gâteau: Some are halved and arranged cut side-out around its perimeter; those that fill the cake are left whole. 

I’ve long admired the aesthetics of the gâteau fraisier, but its soaked sponge and rich custard filling seem a bit old-school. I wanted a nouveau version—easier, a little lighter—but with all the visual and textural appeal of the original.

Because as Coco Chanel famously said, “Fashion changes, but style endures.”

Instead of the traditional sponge cake, which relies on whipped egg whites alone for lift, we use a chiffon cake. It boasts three advantages: First, the egg whites used for lightening are assisted by baking powder, which ensures that the cake rises properly. Second, because a chiffon is made with oil instead of butter, it’s soft and tender at the cool temperatures that best suit strawberries and cream. Third, the oil makes the cake moist, eliminating the need for a soaking syrup. 

In search of something to lend our filling the same creaminess as the traditional cooked custard but with less work and time, we landed on plain Greek yogurt. With loads of body and a silky-smooth consistency, it turned out to be an ideal ready-made base. We whisked the yogurt together with a small amount of liquified gelatin for extra structure and then folded in sweetened whipped cream scented with vanilla. The result is a creamy, sliceable filling with just a hint of cultured dairy tang.

Gâteau fraisier is a tribute to juicy seasonal strawberries. But even just-picked berries can be imperfect, so we took measures to ensure that every bite would be as fruity and tender as possible. Just toss whole berries with sugar, water, and a bit of salt; briefly zap them in the microwave; and let them sit. The maceration process breaks down some of the cell walls in the fruit, tenderizing it and releasing flavors and aromas. (If you’re lucky enough to have exquisite berries, this step will only improve them.)

Rather than the usual, old-fashioned marzipan, a berry gelée is an easy, glitzy finish that makes use of the berry trimmings. It comes together by simmering the strawberry scraps and macerating juices until the fruit is soft. After straining the mixture, we stir in gelatin that’s been bloomed in lemon juice for extra brightness. The gelatin-infused juices firm up as the cake chills, forming a translucent ruby layer.