Strawberry Shortcake once more

This was a re-attempt of the Strawberry Shortcake that I made for my son's birthday last month. But this time round created for a dear friend, WH's son 5th birthday. When WH approached me to bake the Strawberry Shortcake, I was glad to have another opportunity to attempt the recipe again.

And it was a round cake (8 inches) which supposedly easier to frost than a square or angular-shaped cake. Despite experience from the previous attempt, I still found it a challenge to whisk the genoise sponge. Somehow I couldn't perfect the consistency of the batter and I suspected that the sponge would still turn out dry like the first time. True enough when I sought for feedback, the genoise sponge was dry and dense. Oh how do I get a feather light genoise sponge??

Luckily the chantilly cream which was a very light cream, managed to balance and "moisturise" the cake :p

But but but, I still had trouble frosting the cake, especially the sides. Alas my cake still wasn't smooth enough; although there was a slight improvement from the previous one. Is it because chantilly cream is more difficult to manage than buttercream?

Frosting a cake is definitely not easy and in fact when I browsed cake shops for ideas, I noticed most of the shops used chocolate or nuts to cover the sides of the cake. I think probably coz it saves time and hides flaws :p

Personally I like to keep the cake simple and neat, which means, more practice. Strawberry shortcake anyone?