Raspberry and Limoncello Cake

Despite the awful floods across the country at the moment, with the evenings growing lighter and daffodils poking their heads up, I’ve got that spring-is-coming feeling. It feels like it’s been a long, wet winter and I’m already dreaming of pretty summer dresses and cold pints of cider in the beer garden. Spring always makes me think of Afternoon Tea with something fruity, so I felt like making something that tasted fresh and light. This recipe is kind of adlibbed from Lorraine Pascal’s Blueberry and Limoncello Drizzle Cake in her book ‘A Lighter Way to Bake’. Basically, I didn’t have any blueberries and a whole freezer full of raspberries leftover from the summer.

I am always quite dubious about ‘healthy cake’ recipes, but this is actually delicious and fluffy. Plus I feel like I can justify eating two slices…

Ingredients

125g caster sugar

100g unsalted butter, softened

100g full-fat Greek yogurt

2 eggs

250g self-raising flour

4 egg whites

2tsp baking powder

½ tsp vanilla extract

Zest of 2 lemons

200g raspberries (or blueberries)

50g icing sugar

2tbsp Limoncello

Start by preheating the oven to 170⁰C and preparing a 20-cm round tin with baking parchment.

I used the KitchenAid for this, but you could just as easily use a hand-held electric whisk.

Bung the sugar, butter and yogurt together and mix until well combined. Because of the nature of the yogurt it will probably look a little bit lumpy, but that’s normal.

Add the two whole eggs and half of the flour. Beat until the mixture looks more like typical cake batter.

Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until light and fluffy. I have to admit here that I cheated a little and used the Two Chicks egg whites in a carton. I know that’s awful but what on earth are you supposed to do with four discarded egg yolks?! And no, I am not going to make my own mayonnaise. What a load of faff.

Beat in the remaining flour, baking powder, vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste) and lemon zest, along with the fluffy egg whites. You should end up with a nice smooth batter.

Stir in half of the berries.

Turn out the batter into your prepared tin, using your spatula to even out the mixture.

Arrange the rest of the fruit how you like on top of the cake.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 30-45 minutes, or until a skewer when inserted into the cake comes out clean. I think in the end this cake took about an hour in my oven, so you have to use your instincts on this one. If you’re worried about the top burning, pop some brown paper over the cake.

In a small bowl mix together the icing sugar and Limoncello. Lorraine’s recipe says to wait until the cake has cooled to pour it over the top, but I always think with a drizzle cake you want it to melt. Use a spoon to carefully cover the cake, and then place on a nice plate of stand.

This cake is divine when it’s still slightly warm.

Neapolitan Cake

I made this for two of my friend’s birthdays, but I don’t think they minded sharing since it was an absolute monster of a cake. It’s really sweet so I’d recommend swapping the buttercream filling for something else if sugary is not to your taste. Bear in mind for the measurements below that I first weighed the eggs and then weighed the same amount of flour, sugar and butter so it depends entirely on how heavy your eggs are.

Ingredients

6 eggs

13oz self-raising flour

13oz caster sugar

13oz butter

3tsps baking powder

Vanilla bean paste

Cocoa powder

Chocolate extract (optional)

Red food colouring

Strawberry jam

Strawberry essence (optional)

To decorate

Butter

Icing sugar

Crème cheese

Vanilla essence

Cocoa powder

Strawberry jam

Sprinkles

Pick N’ Mix chocolates

Begin by preheating the oven to 180⁰C and lining three 20cm wide cake tins with parchment.

In a large bowl combine the butter, sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder using an electric hand-held whisk until smooth.

Split the mixture evenly into three.

To the first mixture add half a tsp of vanilla bean paste, and stir through until evenly distributed. Pour into the first tin.

To the second mixture add a large dollop of strawberry jam, a small drop of strawberry essence and some red food colouring. Adjust this depending on how pink you want the mixture. If this adds too much moisture then add a couple of spoonfuls of flour. Pour this into the second tin.

To the last bowl add a small drop of chocolate extract if you have it, and a couple of large spoonfuls of cocoa powder. You can add more or less depending on how chocolately you like your cake. Pour this into the third tin.

Bake all three in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing first cream a large knob of butter until light and creamy.

Sift in large spoonfuls of icing sugar, adding small splashes of milk if the mixture becomes too thick. Add a small knob of cream cheese and mix until smooth.

Separate two largish blobs of icing into bowls. Add cocoa powder to one, and strawberry jam to the other.

Get a cake stand or plate and plop a little blob of icing into the middle to help keep the cake in place.

Place the chocolate layer on the bottom and cover in the chocolate buttercream.

Add the strawberry layer next and cover in the pink icing.

Add the vanilla layer last.

Add a couple of drops of vanilla extract to the remainder of the icing. Cover the whole cake, including the sides in the vanilla icing.

The next step is to cover the sides in rainbow coloured sprinkles, so that it looks like an ice-cream. I will admit that I had a bit of a ‘mare at this stage trying to figure out how to get them to stick to the cake. Chucking handfuls of sprinkles at it and hoping for the best is unsurprisingly not very effective. The best way I found was by using a palette knife dipped in hot water. Then put the hot knife into the tub of sprinkles and then smush into the cake. Do this all around the side of the cake (it takes a lot of sprinkles).

I found some little chocolate ice-cream cones in Wilkos which I used to decorate the top of the cake, but it would look lovely with anything.

As you can see from the photos, there is no such thing as a ‘small’ slice of this cake.