11 Jul 2012

The Cake That Rocked


Have you ever had this weird feeling that you’ve made a decision on a gut feeling, and only understood a few years later why it was the best decision you could ever make?
I have. My entire life is a succession of gut-driven decisions that magically happened to make sense in the long run. Hobbies, relationships (altough I did make few bad choices in that field in the past), career choices…and coming to live in London.
When I came to London, I didn’t know that it would tick so many - absooolutely essential - boxes and change my life for the best in so many ways.

I finally:
  • Live in a country where nobody ever teases me on my outfit, should my dress be too bright or too short (in France I was an outsider, here I am almost a traditionalist!)
  • Live in a country where people smile and speak to you nicely most of the time, even if they might be in a bad mood
  • Live in a country where people don’t kiss to say “hello” or “goodbye” (I know, I am an offence to my French-ness, but I absolutely hate kissing on the cheeks!)
  • Live in the country of my dear beloved banoffee pie. Yes, this is enough good a reason to live here. 
  • Live in a kingdom, with a queen, princes and princesses and, of course, fairy tales
  • Live in a city where I can go and see live musicals as often as I want (and I do do so very often)
So it was high time I showed this new country of mine how much I love it.



The cake that rocked

This cake is as impressive as it is easy to make. You can even make the sponge in advance and freeze it until the day of serving. It is light, packed with fresh fruits and easy to cut in squares : ideal for a dinner with 6/10 friends. Easy peasy!

Ingredients for the sponge:
  • 100g butter, softened
  • 175g self-raising flour
  • 50g ground almonds
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 4 large eggs
  • 225g caster sugar
  • 125ml full-fat Greek yogurt
  • zest 2 lemons 
  • option: 100g French glacé cherries (I told you, I use them everywhere!)
Make the sponge: 
  1. Heat oven to 180C. 
  2. Butter and line a 30 x 20cm traybake tin with baking parchment. 
  3. Measure all the sponge ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix together using an electric hand whisk until smooth. 
  4. Spoon into the tin and level the surface.
  5. Bake for 25-30 mins until lightly golden and the top of the cake springs back when pressed with your finger, and the sides of the sponge are shrinking away from the sides of the tin. 
  6. Carefully lift the sponge out of the tin, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. 
  7. Remove the baking parchment.  
     Ingredients for the icing: 
  • 2 x 384ml pot whipping cream
  • 1/3 cup of icing sugar
  • 2 tbsp of lemon juice
     Make the icing:
  1. Beat the whipping cream with lemon juice until just set
  2. Fold in the sugar
     Decorate the cake:
  1. Spread the cream on top of the cake
  2. Draw the Union Jack flag with fresh raspberries (300g needed) and blueberries (175g needed) 


You can of course use any fresh fruits you like and draw anything you wish on the cake! Have fun!
Recipe adapted from www.bbcgoodfood.com

4 comments:

  1. Your fruit tart looks scrumptious and I am going to try it this weekend. Glad you are so happy in England Thanks for the recipe Maria

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