Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been one of my favourite games recently. And so I attempted to recreate the Birthday Cake as a surprise for my friend's birthday who's also a fan!

The cake itself is based off of a Japanese strawberry shortcake using a chiffon sponge, whipped cream and wonderfully fresh strawberries. And most importantly, it’s not too sweet.

It didn't look exactly like the cake in the game as I imagined (should have made the bottom layer 8" instead of 6"), but hey, change it up how you want.

The only components are:

- Chiffon Cake

- Simple Syrup

- Whipped Cream Frosting

- Toppings & Candles

~ Please Enjoy ~

Step 1: Chiffon Sponge

Ingredients:

2 cups (250g) Cake Flour
2 tsp (8g) Baking Powder
¼ tsp Salt
6 Large Eggs (Room Temperature)
⅔ cup (135g) Granulated Sugar
½ cup Oil (light, neutral flavor oil, such as, vegetable oil)
¼ cup Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
½ Lemon (Juiced)
½ tsp Cream of Tartar

Sponges can be tricky to make so be sure to weigh everything out beforehand. Combine the cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Then sift this baby 5 times. You heard me right. This is so we can get a truely fine and airy texture.
Separate the eggs and be careful not to leave any yolks behind in the egg whites.
Whip the egg yolks with half the sugar until pale and creamy, then add oil, milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Mix until it becomes thick enough to leave a trail of ribbon when you lift the whisk.
Beat the egg whites on high speed until frothy and foamy. Add the cream of tartar. Then gradually add in the rest of the sugar – a little at a time – until the egg whites reach stiff peaks. We want volume and we want it stiff. You should be able to hold a tablespoon of it upside down without anything falling.
Gently mix the dry ingredients into the egg yolks mixture. We don’t want to undo all the hard work we did in the beginning with the sifting. Gluten is our enemy.
The trickiest part is mixing the batter with the meringue. Fold in a 1/3 of the meringue at a time, each time making sure that the merigue is mixed in fully. By the end, you should get the most satisfyingly smooth, pale batter imaginable.
Line a 6” and a 4” cake tin with baking paper and pour in the batter, leaving about half an inch to the rim. This recipe actually creates another 6” cake so there’s some spare left in case.
Bake for 30-35 minutes at 180°C (~350°F), or until the toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Once the cakes are done, take them out and let them cool in the tins on a wire rack for 10 minutes or so. When they’re cooled enough to handle, remove from the pans and let cool completely on the rack.

Step 2: Simple Syrup

Ingredients:

½ cup Water or Milk
½ cup Granulated Sugar
3-4 pcs Lemon Peel

A syrup is usually just water and sugar boiled with some aromatics that can pretty much be whatever you want.

For this recipe, I was inspired by the Mexican Tres Leches cake to do a milky syrup. You can ramp this up by swapping the ½ cup Granulated Sugar for ½ cup sweetened Condensed Milk.

While the cakes are baking, prepare the simple syrup by combining all the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat until sugar is completely dissolved. Let cool completely.

Step 3: Whipped Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

4 cups (2 pints/32 fl oz/950 ml) Heavy Whipping Cream (cold)
⅔ cups Confectioners Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Powdered Gelatin
4 tsp Water, boiling

Prepare for this step by placing the heavy cream in the freezer around 10 minutes beforehand. The cream should be as cold as possible without freezing.
If using, melt the gelatin powder with the hot water and let it cool down to room temperature.
At the lowest speed possible, whip the cream and vanilla extract with the whisk attachment to slowly build up tiny air bubbles. Gradually increasing the speed only after several minutes. Do not go above the medium speed. This builds a more stable structure, and makes it less likely to melt on a warm day.
While the mixer is still running, gradually add in the confectioner’s sugar, a tablespoon at a time. Let the cream continue to build up volume slowly. Once the cream almost reaches soft peak, blend in the cooled dissolved gelatin while the mixer is still running. To maintain the temperature, place a cold pack beside the bowl (I used frozen peas).
Let it run for a few more seconds until it forms soft peak. As soon as the cream reaches soft peak, turn off the mixer right away and finish whipping the cream by hand. I find this provides good control to not overwhip it.

Step 4: Assembly

It's all coming together now!

Toppings:

Fresh Strawberries
Strawberry Jam or Neutral glaze
Birthday Candles

Tools:

Palette Knife (or anything flat like a ruler)
Piping bag (or any kitchen bag with the corner cut)
Turnable cake table

Reserve a few of the best looking strawberries that are all the same size to use as the topper for the cake. Cut the rest into thin, even slices, to be used as filling between the cake layers.
Remove the baking paper from the cakes. Start by slicing off the domed top off to create an even surface to work with. Then slice both cakes evenly in half, to create 2 small round layers and 2 large round layers.
Lay down the first large layer and brush generously with the syrup, letting it soak in completely.
Spread the cream evenly and top with the sliced strawberries, then top with more cream before adding the other large layer. Brush the layer with syrup and spread the cream over evenly, then place the small round layer on top. Repeat the same process:
~~~~~ Cream ~~~~~
---------- Syrup ---------
[[[[[[[[[[ Sponge ]]]]]]]]]]
~~~~~ Cream ~~~~~
=== Strawberries ===
~~~~~ Cream ~~~~~
---------- Syrup ---------
[[[[[[[[[[ Sponge ]]]]]]]]]]
Fully frost the top tier of the cake, and only partially frost the top half of the bottom tier in a “naked cake” style.
Carefully place the reserved whole strawberries on top of the cake, pointy ends up. Brush the strawberry jam over the strawberries to add the shine.
Add the whipped cream in a piping bag with a large round piping tip. Create large, voluminous round dollops around the strawberries. Repeat the process for the bottom tier.
Decorate with candles in a multitude of colours (I only had blue and yellow at the time) on the bottom tier of the cake.