No Bake Fruit Cake

It was my husband’s birthday this weekend so I gave another try to one of the most delicious and popular cakes in Romania  – the Diplomat Cake. A combination of  fruit and bavarian cream layered with lady fingers soaked in fruit juice. This is definitely a must try!

Ingredients:

• 6 egg yolks
• 2 cups of sugar
• 2 cups milk
• 2 TBSP flour
• 3 cups heavy whipping cream
• 2 cups raspberry, 1 cup blackberry (traditionally this cake is made with pineapple, oranges and kiwi… feel free to use any fruit you want but make sure they don’t leave too much juice)
• 3 Knox unflavored gelatine pouches (each pouch has about 2 1/2 teaspoons of you can use 7 1/2 teaspoons of any unflavored gelatine)
• 1 cup orange juice to soak the lady fingers
• 2 packages lady fingers

Preparation:

• Using an electric mixer beat the egg yolks and sugar for a couple minutes, add the milk and flour and continue mixing until there are no lumps
• Transfer the mixture in a pot and cook over low heat while stirring. This needs to reach the consistency of pudding. Once it starts boiling it should only take a couple more minutes for everything to thicken. Make sure you keep stirring! Don’t overcook it as it will start separating. Once it’s done transfer it to a bowl and let it cool for 10 minutes
• (after 10 minutes) Mix the gelatine with 1/2 cups warm water, stir so you don’t have lumps and add to the pudding like mixture, use a spoon to incorporate everything together and make sure there are no lumps from the gelatine. The egg-sugar-milk mixture should still be warm enough to help the gelatine dissolve in the entire mixture. Set it aside
• Beat the heavy whipping cream on high speed until stiff . Set the mixer on a low speed and start adding the pudding to the whipped cream a spoon at a time
• Soak the lady fingers and arrange them on the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan (if you don’t have a springform pan you can use a regular pan but you would put the fruit on the bottom and lady finger on top so you can turn the cake upside down to take it out of the pan)
• Layer the cream and fruit on top of the lady fingers (do not mix the fruit in the cream just layer), in case you have any lady fingers left you can add another layer of lady fingers soaked in juice
• Finish the cake with fruit on top and set in in the fridge overnight so the cream can harden
• Use a knife to separate the cake from the walls of the pan and remove the walls (if you used a regular cake pan you will need to separate the cake from the pan using a knife, put a plate on top of the pan and then turn it upside down so the cake comes out)
• You can top with more fruit or whipped cream and serve cold

Enjoy!