Strawberry Cake Recipe inspired by a Paris-Brest style.

Start by preparing the pastry cream for the diplomat cream. Soak the gelatin in a large volume of cold water. Whisk the egg yolks well with the sugar. Split the vanilla pod in half and scrape the inside. Add the seeds to the egg-sugar mixture, then add the cornstarch and whisk a little more to incorporate.

Bring the milk to a boil with the split vanilla pod. Remove the vanilla pod and gradually pour the milk over the yolks, whisking vigorously. Then return everything to the saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. The cream should cook a little and thicken.

Remove from heat, add the drained gelatine and mix well to dissolve it. Pour the cream into a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap touching the surface, and let it cool in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

In the meantime, prepare the choux pastry. Preheat the oven to 180°C, static heat. Draw a circle with a diameter of 25 cm on a sheet of parchment paper. Turn the paper over and place it on a baking tray.

In a saucepan, pour in the water. Add the butter cut into pieces and the salt. Bring to a boil. Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the flour all at once. Mix well with a spatula, making sure not to leave any lumps.

Put the saucepan back on the heat, stirring regularly to dry out the dough. As soon as it pulls away from the sides of the saucepan and starts to form a ball - it's ready. (It goes quite fast - 1-2 minutes). Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool for 5 minutes. Then add the eggs one by one, making sure to mix well with the spatula to incorporate the dough after each addition.

Stick the four corners of the parchment paper to the baking sheet with a bit of choux pastry. Pour the pastry into a piping bag fitted with a large plain or star tip (I used a 10 mm plain tip). Pipe 2 circles side by side and one on top in the middle, overlapping the two. With the remaining pastry, I made 5 individual puffs. However, once made, I realized they should be baked separately, as the sizes are very different, so the baking time will be too, and the puffs don’t like it when the oven door is opened. So, if you make these, pipe them onto another sheet :-). Bake and cook for about 40 minutes for the large individual puffs and 50-55 minutes for the large crown. The pastry should be well golden and sound hollow when tapped. Keep an eye on your ovens, as each oven bakes differently. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Prepare the diplomat cream. After 3 hours, whip the very cold liquid cream into whipped cream. Remove the pastry cream from the fridge and whisk it a bit to soften it. Gently fold the whipped cream into the pastry cream in batches using a spatula. The diplomat cream is ready and can be used immediately.

Wash, dry, and hull the strawberries. Cut them in half or into quarters, depending on their size.