Sponge Cake with Whipped Cream and Berries

Once I finally got settled in our new kitchen, I was overcome with the serious urge to bake something. Anything. Preferably a cake or pie. It had been a long time since I'd bothered much with baking since our old oven was so unpredictable.

Although my first choice is always a pie, since it was Father's Day weekend I decided instead to make a cake to celebrate. But I didn't want something heavy, like the German chocolate cake Conservative Hubby suggested at first. I wanted something light and fresh and springy.

So I decided to make this sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous about tackling this recipe. For one thing, I don't bake cakes all that often. For another, I was trying out our new oven for the first time. And—this was the big one—I decided to be brave and try a gluten-free sponge cake recipe.

The recipe I used, from Gluten Free on a Shoestring, looked easy enough. Eggs, granulated sugar, freshly squeezed lemon juice, cornstarch, kosher salt, vanilla extract, and a gluten-free flour blend. (She includes a link to her preferred blend with the recipe, but I used my usual mix instead.)

Mixing together the ingredients was easy. (There's something I can't quite describe about how lovely a bowl of cake batter can be. Perhaps someday I will try to put it into words for you, when I'm feeling a bit more poetic and my stomach isn't growling at me.)

Pouring the batter into the pan was easy.

Waiting for the cake to bake—and praying it would turn out OK—was excruciatingly hard.

Fortunately, the cake turned out beautifully. Golden and spongey, just as it should.

Once the cake cooled, I made some homemade whipped cream. (Nothing fancy. Just 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 cup heavy whipping cream, mixed and mixed and mixed some more until I had a bowl full of sugary-white peaks. This, by the way, made more whipped cream than I actually needed. But there's nothing wrong with having some leftover whipped cream.)

I cut the cake in half, generously slathered the top of the first half with whipped cream, added cut strawberries, placed the second half of the cake on top, and repeated the slathering and placing. Easy as can be.

And the results? Absolutely delicious. No one would have been the wiser that it was gluten free, except that both Little Man and I got to enjoy a rather large piece of cake—and otherwise, we would've passed on it.

(He said "mmmm" after each and every bite and ended up with whipped cream from his chin to the top of his head. That, in my world, is success.)

I'm thinking of making this cake again this week, in fact. With some blueberries thrown in alongside the strawberries, I imagine this would make for a rather festive Fourth of July treat.