White Chocolate and Strawberry Cake

This cake is not what I expected it to be.

All the components individually were wonderful.  The white chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream, the soft but dense vanilla sponge, the layer of fresh strawberries and jam.

Everything tasted delicious and it was very well received by family and friends who were suitably impressed.

But for some reason I didn’t like the whole once the components were put together.  I thought this flavour combination is a classic and works very well – but maybe I didn’t get to experience it at its best as by the time I tasted it, it was a couple of days old and straight from the fridge.

What I did discover was that I very much enjoyed the process of making a layer cake, although, with full-time work in the office, it did take me two whole days to make this.

I made the vanilla cake first and this really is a firm favourite that I have made numerous times since I discovered it almost a year ago on this youtube channel.  I then refrigerated it overnight and made the butter cream the next day and put it all together.

I haven’t made a layer cake in a while.  They’re not really what I enjoy about baking.  Or so I thought.

The construction, so to speak, was what I liked – the building, layering, plastering on buttercream and lastly, the decorating.

While I do love my more ‘rustic’ cakes and while I still believe most cakes really don’t need an icing or topping to be enjoyed, once in a while making the more fancy cakes can be very satisfying indeed.

White Chocolate and Strawberry Cake

This makes a very soft, springy cake, with a lovely dense, but light texture, tight crumb and great taste.  Its great for carving as it doesn't crumble but for some reason it doesn't translate very well to the more normal sized cupcakes - although the cake was good with a great taste, the top of the cupcakes almost caramelised and darkened considerably.  However, it definitely is a great recipe for layered cakes and stacking cakes.  It also keeps very well in the fridge (kept for a week in clingfilm and was completely like new) and suspect that it will also freeze well.  
Vanilla Sponge Cake:

·         4 eggs

·         400g sugar

·         1 tsp vanilla paste

·         250ml milk

·         115g butter, melted

·         300g plain flour

·         2tsp baking powder

·         ¼ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180C Gas4 and prepare two 8" cake tins.

Whip the eggs in a stand mixer for at least 5 minutes to make them light and fluffy and very aerated.

Gradually add the sugar in small amounts so as not to deflate the eggs by adding too much 'weight'.

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and gradually add this to the mixture to make a batter.

Melt the butter and milk in a bowl then take some of the batter and mix it with the butter/milk.  This will create a 'liaison', making the liquid a little thicker before adding it to the batter - if you just add the liquid straight to the batter mixture it will thin the batter down too much.  This way the batter will keep its thickness and lightness.

Pour into the two cake tins and bake until light and springy to the touch. 

White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

·         1 batch Swiss Meringue Buttercream (from this recipe)

·         100ml double or single cream

·         150g white chocolate, broken into very small pieces

Make up the batch of buttercream as shown in this previous post. 

Heat up the cream on medium heat, making sure not to scald it. Pour on top of the white chocolate pieces and leave alone for about a minute to let the hot cream melt the white chocolate.

Mix the cream and chocolate together well to make a white chocolate ganache and allow it to cool.

Add in gradually to the batch of buttercream and mix in thoroughly after each addition.  Taste as you go along and you might decide not to use all of the white chocolate ganache.

Assembly

Take about half the contents of the jam jar and heat a little in the microwave so that it becomes a little easier to spread.

Slice about half the punnet of strawberries fairly thinly (thick pieces will make the cake you place on top more liable to move around), making sure you’ve kept aside the visually best looking ones for the decoration on top.  I kept the ones that had the most obvious strawberry shape and that were roughly the same size.

Once the cakes have cooled down completely, take one and ice it completely on top with the buttercream.  Leave the sides of the cake free of buttercream for now.  I always use the cake that looks slightly thicker to me as the bottom one.

Place the strawberries on top of the iced cake, trying to fit them in on every available surface but also trying not to make them overlap.  Cut them up further if needed.

Take some softened jam on a spoon and carefully spread over the strawberries making sure to not dislodge them.

Place the second cake on top and carefully align.  Ice the whole of the cake completely.

Take the strawberries you have set aside for the top and slice each of them thinly, starting from the stalk end but not quite reaching the bottom.  In this way you should be able to fan them open.  Place evenly on top of the cake and add some strategically placed silver dragees.

 

Cinnamon, Walnut and Courgette Cake

I’m so sorry for the bad lighting in some of my photos so far.  It’s been pouring down in Scotland (and the UK!) for the past few weeks – you know, the type of weather where you have to keep the lights on even in so called daylight hours.  Not that we have much daylight right now as it’s dark by half past three.

I’m also very new at photography.  I got my camera just a couple of weeks before I started this blog and it’s my first DSLR camera.  I have absolutely no idea about the functions or workings of DSLR cameras.  The minute I got it I briefly checked how to turn it on, what buttons to press to take a pic and how to charge the battery.  Then it was a matter of turning it on to auto-focus and snapping away.  I love my camera and do want to learn more about it, so I’m going to take a module at the Open University in May on how to become more knowledgeable about one.  Can’t wait.

Now this cake was made because after owning The Humming Bird Bakery: Cake Days for over a year, I hadn’t used it all that much.  The only recipe I think I made of theirs were the Earl Grey Cupcakes which turned out very nice indeed.  But I hadn’t made anything after that and thought it was about time.

This caught my eye naturally because of the cinnamon and also because I had lots of courgettes that needed using up.  I also love oil based cakes.  I think oil gives the cake a lot more bounce, softness and a much tighter crumb.  I feel that oil- based cakes cut better without crumbling all over the place and make the cake lighter somehow too.  I know butter will always win out on taste, but where the cake is heavily flavoured (like here with cinnamon) then it doesn’t become that important.

This is the type of recipe I love because it is so easy to make.  It’s one of those ‘mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients’ method and the main ingredient quantities are all in ‘3s’ (3 eggs, 300ml oil, 300g sugar etc) so very easy to remember.

I replaced the butter and yoghurt icing that the recipe specified, for a Swiss Meringue Buttercream icing instead.  The cake really impressed everyone; it was lovely and soft with a warm cinnamon flavour and contrastingly nice crunch from the walnut bits.  I made this again (after numerous requests from my sister-in-law) but with almonds instead of walnuts and no icing and it was just as good for a teatime treat.  I honestly think this cake is wonderful on its own sans any kind of icing but I will include the one given in the recipe if you would like to try.

Cinnamon, Walnut and Courgette Cake (from The Humming Bird Bakery: Cake Days)

·         3 large eggs

·         300ml sunflower oil

·         300g soft light brown sugar

·         ½ tsp vanilla essence

·         300g plain flour

·         1 tsp baking powder

·         1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

·         2 tsp cinnamon

·         ½ tsp ground ginger

·         ½ tsp nutmeg

·         300g courgettes, peeled and grated

·         100g walnuts, chopped roughly

Preheat oven to 180C and prepare two 8” round cake tins.

Combine the wet ingredients together; eggs, sunflower oil and sugar, in large bowl.

Sift together the dry ingredients; flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet in two batches, mixing well after each batch.

Add the grated courgettes and chopped walnuts into the batter making sure you fold them in thoroughly.

Bake for about 40-45 minutes (although check after about 30 minutes to see if they are done).  Allow the cakes to cool for about 5 minutes in the tin before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool.

Frosting (from The Humming Bird Bakery: Cake Days)

·         240g unsalted butter, softened

·         1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

·         750g icing sugar

·         75g Greek yoghurt

Whisk together the butter, cinnamon and icing sugar until the mixture is sandy in consistency with all the butter fully mixed.

Whisk in the yoghurt on a low speed until it is combined, then turn the speed to high and whisk the icing until light and fluffy.

Assembly

Once the cakes have cooled, slice each in half to make four layers. 

Stack these on top of each other with frosting between each layer, using a little between each layer and leaving a larger amount to frost the top and outside of the cake. 

Dust the top with a little cinnamon – I used a craft stencil and dusted the cinnamon through that, giving a pretty effect.