End of SAHM and another Strawberry Shortcake

I'm starting a new part-time job tomorrow!! So today marks the end of my journey as a Stay-At-Home-Mum and a new challenge as a working mum. Well, the job is considered part-time as I'll be working 34 hrs a week i.e. slightly shorter hours each day. At least I could reach home in time to cook dinner and then wait for dear son's return from the childcare centre. That said I would have only about an hour to cook dinner so I guess it's better that I prepare all the ingredients the night before.

Actually after a 2-year hiatus, I do have mixed feelings about returning to the corporate world. On one hand, I miss working and having a salary, but on the other hand, felt a little guilty towards my son and also apprehensive over the upcoming challenges of managing a job, household chores and responsibility as a mum all at the same time. It's also about getting used to a different routine, lifestyle and pace which is a change from being a SAHM. Well, I guess I would adapt in time to come, and hope that dear son could too. I've already converted him from half-day to full-day CC for a week, and he's slowly adapting albeit very sticky to me once he reached home.

The upcoming journey is not going to be a walk in the park, but we'll see how things go. Wish me luck!

Anyways, today is hubby's birthday so it's a perfect chance for me to practise my Strawberry Shortcake. There's only the three of us, so I couldn't possible bake the full original size cake (8")which is too big and too much.

So I simply halved the recipe for the Genoise Sponge and baked the cake in a 7"cake tin. The cake turned out shorter and shrunk a little. As usual I was pretty worried about the texture of the cake, but I had already folded the batter as gently as possible already.

For the chantilly cream, I made only 40% quantity of original recipe as I don't use much cream and always had lots of leftovers (400ml whipped cream, 40g sugar, 40g mascaprone cheese).

With experience from past 2 attempts, the frosting was smoother this time round. I sort of "crumb-coat" the cake first and chilled it for an hour before the actual frosting. The cake looked decent enough but still not perfect. I still think that chantilly cream is not as easy to frost as compared to buttercream. For the deco, simply strawberries, just like the other 2 attempts.

And for the taste test, the cake turned out great this time! Very fine, tender and moist, I believe I have nailed it, at least 80% :)

Overall, I'm quite happy with this attempt. The cake weighs about 900g to 1kg, depending on the amount of strawberries used and serves about 6 pax (generous slice) to 8 pax (small thin slice).

Pardon for the photographs, took very quick snapshots as dear son couldn't wait to get his hands on the cake. He's very into birthdays recently and insisted it was his birthday. Well, technically it's his 27th month birthday, so yes he shared the glory of the birthday song and candle with his daddy.

Ok then, I'm off now. Hope I could have enough time to blog with my new schedule!