Prep: Mix together the milk and white vinegar in a small bowl to make buttermilk. Place this in the fridge for 15 minutes for the milk to slightly curdle. Then you’ll have buttermilk!

Sift the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and skim milk powder into a bowl and mix together. In a separate bowl, combine the jam, buttermilk and vanilla extract. Set both bowls aside.

In a large bowl, whip the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Then add the eggs and egg whites one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture (flour>buttermilk>flour>buttermilk>flour), gently mixing after each addition. Then add the diced strawberries and pink food colouring and mix until just combined.

Pour the batter into one buttered 9” round cake pan. Bake at 350F for 1 hour or until fully cooked. Transfer the cake to a cooling rack and allow it to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and place directly on the wire rack to cool completely.

In the meantime, take about 1/5 of the vanilla buttercream and place it in a small bowl. Add the matcha green tea powder and mix well. Add a few drops of pink food colouring and the strawberry jam to the remaining vanilla buttercream and mix well.

Once the cake has fully cooled, slice the cake in half to create two layers. Stack the layers on top of each other and slice them into a strawberry shape (like a rounded triangle with 3 lumps on top for the leaves). Keep the cake scraps for nibbling.

Place the cake on a serving platter of your choice, and begin assembling the cake. Place a large dollop of buttercream between the layers and spread the buttercream about ½ inch from the edges of the cake. Sprinkle the mini chocolate chips on top of the buttercream to create “seeds” inside the cake. Top with the second layer of cake, then spread a thin layer of buttercream over the entire cake as a crumb coat. This will ensure that any crumbs don’t get caught in the outer buttercream layer. Make sure to coat the leaves of the strawberries with the green matcha buttercream for the crumb coat. Place the cake in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Coat the cake in a thick, fluffy layer of buttercream. Coat the strawberry in pink and the leaves in green buttercream. Then stick the dark chocolate chips pointy side down onto the cake to look like seeds.