Soft Cakes

1. Whisk eggs and sugar until it's white and airy (eggedosis). Around 10 minutes, not less than 7. Sift in the rest of the ingredients. Fold it in until you get a lump free batter.
2. Add parchment paper to a baking tray. Preferably use a piping bag (or a spoon) and distribute a thin layer of cake batter. Form a circle of about 4in (10 cm) in diameter. You'll get around 22 circles of batter, 2 for each cake.
3. Bake in a pre-heated oven of 400F (200C) for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. They will be crispy with soft centers, pale and with a little brown edges. They will soften once filled and chilled overnight.

Rum Pastry Cream

1. Pour the milk, 1/3 of the heavy cream and 1/2 of the sugar into a saucepan. Cut open and scrape out the seeds of the vanilla beans. Place everything into the saucepan. Heat up to the point of boiling, constantly stirring.
2. In another bowl, whisk together 1/3 of the heavy cream, egg yolks, cornstarch and the rest of the sugar.
3. Cool the milk mixture a little bit before slowly pouring it into the egg mixture while constantly whisking.
4. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan, make sure you bring with you the vanilla seeds. Heat the mixture back up, whisk constantly until it is thickening to a pudding-like consistency. Once you see a few bubbles pop, remove from the heat.
5. Place the saucepan into a tub of cold water. Add in the rum essence and give it a taste. You want it to taste a little stronger than you would like (see next step).
6. Take the last 1/3 of the heavy cream and whip it. Once the rum custard is cold, fold in the whipped cream.**

Assembly

1. Once the cakes are cold, take two cakes that are similar in shape and place them together. Turn one the other way around (so the bottom is showing) and spread 1 heaping tsp of apricot jam on it. Do this on half of the cakes.
2. Take the rum cream into a piping bag and spread rum cream over the apricot jam, generously. Do this on half of the cakes. If you separated the whipped cream and the rum custard, you need to pipe two separate layers of cream onto the cakes.
3. Mix powdered sugar with a little bit of water to make a glazing. Take the other half of the cakes and spread this glazing thinly over. Decorate while still wet. I decorate with either dried flowers or jelly candy.
4. Assemble today and serve tomorrow, as the cakes need time to soften. Keep covered in the fridge for 2-3 days.