vanilla & raspberry cream cake

So, the cake I blogged about on Wednesday was a bit of an experiment, and I want to write down the recipe before I forget what I did.

The recipients had requested a cake that was a bit like a raspberry roulade but looked like a cake, not a pudding. After much internet browsing for inspiration and finding very little by way of raspberry roulade cake, I made up my own version.

It went a little someting like this:

Stage One

Vanilla sponge

225g / 8oz unsalted butter

225g / 80z caster sugar

225g / 8oz self raising flour

3 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract (good quality makes all the difference. Believe it or not, I got asked for ID in the supermarket when purchasing my new bottle of extract because it contains 35% alcohol. Oh my. I had to laugh & reassure the checkout boy that I did not intend on downing the bottle of extract. )

1. Beat together the butter & sugar for 5 mins

2. Add the eggs, beating well after each addition

3. Add the vanilla extract

4. Sift in the flour & baking powder then mix gently

5. Pour the mixture into 2 greased & lined 8" tins and bake at 180C /gas mark 4 for 35mins or until the cake is lightly golden and coming away from the edges of the tin

Stage Two

Raspberry Cream

150g raspberries

300ml double cream

100g icing sugar

1. Sift icing sugar into a bowl

2. Add the cream & raspberries, then beat together until thickened

Stage Three

Regular cream

Whip 300ml of double cream together until thick enough to pipe & put half of this in a piping bag, leaving the remainder for icing the cake.

Stage Four

Time to Assemble

This next step requires a good eye, a steady hand or 3, a serated knife, or a cake leveller if you happen to have one (I do, and it worked like a dream).

Cut each layer of the cake in half.

Put the raspberry cream in one piping bag, and the whipped double cream in another.

If you don't have piping bags, you can use a strong zip-lock bag with one corner cut off.

1. Place the first layer on your cake board.

2. On the first layer, pipe a ring of raspberry cream around the edge of the circle, then continue to pipe concentric circles until you get to the centre.

3. Place another layer of cake on top of the cream and press down gently.

4. Repeat this method on the next layer, starting with the regular cream for your outermost circle if you started with raspberry cream on the previous layer. This will create a chequerboard effect when you cut through the layers.

5. Put a third layer on the top and press down gently.

I stopped at this stage, but if you wanted a very tall cake, you could add another layer of cream, then top with the fourth layer of cake.
6. Cover the cake with the remaining cream
At this stage, I wanted to ensure I didn't get any of the raspberry cream mixed in with the beautiful white cream, so I piped a thin layer over the top / around the edge of the layer which had raspberry cream in the outermost circle. That sounds confusing - does it make sense?
To get a good finish, a palette knife is invaluable, as is a cake smoother, if you have one. (This is essentially a thin piece of plastic that you can use to make a surface completely flat - nothing majorly technical, but brilliant all the same.)

{photo courtesy of Lydia, so I could see what it looked like inside!}