It felt like a baking day to me. I wanted to make something new and so turned to my current crop of library books. The Birthday Cake Book by Fiona Cairns had a nice looking recipe for a blackberry, lavender rose, and white chocolate cake for which I had almost all the ingredients except for the blackberries -coz it's winter, and the lavendar-rose water- coz who actually has that kind of stuff? So really I just made a white chocolate cake.
The recipe is straight forward, but a little more time consuming than I usually have time for ( god bless lazy Saturday afternoons).
This recipe makes two 20cm cakes which are joined together with blackcurrent compote , or in my case jam, then the whole is smothered in white chocolate ganache.
Chocolate ganache and I are not friends. I usually swap it out for another icing, but I felt a determination burning within to finally master this runny topping...I didn't succeed. Grrrrrr.
Still I managed a somewhat thickened icing that didn't immediately run off the cake to lie in puddles on the serving plate. I think I'll have to stick with butter cream frosting.
The cake itself was lovely and really tasted white chocolatey. It was almost crisp on a the outside with a dryer ( but still soft) crumb inside.
This is my version of the recipe.
180g butter ( I used salted...yes be horrified)
200g white chocolate buttons (the original recipe called for white Swiss chocolate, but I'm not that flash so buttons it was).
200ml whole milk
280g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
250g fine sugar (castor sugar)
3 eggs lightly beaten
1tsp vanilla extract
Heat the butter, milk, and chocolate together in a saucepan. Leave to cool a little.
Sift the flour and baking powder together into a large bowl. Add the sugar, then the eggs and mix. Once combined, add the chocolate mixture and the vanilla. Mix together and pour between to 20cm round cake tins ( I greased the sides and lined the bottom).
Bake for 35-45 minutes. When you think they are baked through. Check by inserting a skewer or a knife into the centre, if it comes out clean, the cake is done. Don't use the spring back method, when you gently press your finger into the centre of the cake and if it springs back it's done, because the outer is crispier than a regular cake, you end up cracking the shell instead.
This is the finished cake. I tried to deflect from the ganache disaster by making it pink and adding some cherries and coconut.
It really does need the fruit jam in between the layers it adds a little tart to the sweetness.
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