In my last post, I promised you a storm of calories and boy, does this deceptively innocent pink and white veiled yet wanton-within behemoth of a cake deliver that! All in the name of providing a cake for my lovely friend of the coconut chocolate cake fame Annette a cake for her Jubilee party this week.

So, here I present you the first celebration of the summer, courtesy of a completely wonderful recipe by Edd Kimber, The Boy Who Bakes. I hope you’ve been eating light and doing an extra couple of miles in your daily run as boy, I do not accept responsibility for any increase in body mass upon reading this post! In fact, read on at your own risk 😉

Raspberry Ripple Cake - a light and fluffy vanilla cake filled with raspberry jam and frosted with ripples of both white chocolate and raspberry Italian meringue buttercream

That would be the money shot, that would, right there ^^^. Just look at soft pink, white then glassy almost rubied red raspberry jam ripples whirling around in a dreamy swirl of a cake. For those of you who love raspberry ripple ice cream, this is the cake of your dreams. It begins with ethereal, feather light sponges which possess the finest, gossamer crisp sugar crust beneath which lurks a moist sponge of which home bakers dream.

As for the filling and the frosting (this is where things will get nawty, no calories were spared in the making of this cake!), one begins with melting white chocolate and cooking a caramel. If you’re less renegade than me, you won’t attempt doing them simultaneously 😉

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Next, comes the white chocolate Italian meringue buttercream – i.e. a frosting you make by pouring scorching hot syrup (or in this case a caramel really) onto whisked egg whites before whipping in lots of butter and folding in white choc or raspberry jam.

For those of you who have not ventured into the territory of MBCs before, please do give it a go! I find them very forgiving and all they need is the ability to hold your nerve and carry on high-speed whisking until the desired lusciously thick, soft, velvety and rich whipped cream-like substance materialises in your stand mixer bowl.

Now I may have gotten lucky but this frosting was extremely well behaved and came together in the blink of an eye. My only alteration was to reduce the quantities of the ingredients in the frosting recipe to suit what I had left plus my gut told me the original was too much. My gut was right – I still had a good couple of heaped tablespoons of this frosting left after frosting the cake generously 🙂

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We then layer up the cake, jam, frosting ad infinitum until you have a triple decker colossal before you. The coating of the cake is much facilitated by the possession of a turn table and a large flat bladed spatula so you can whirl and twirl until the swirl you desire is achieved. The less “finished” the better with this cake (as with all home made ones methinks!) as you want to preserve the ripple effect, not swipe it away in an effort to give a tidy finish!

Raspberry Ripple Cake - a light and fluffy vanilla cake filled with raspberry jam and frosted with ripples of both white chocolate and raspberry Italian meringue buttercream

Don’t you just want to run your finger through that frosting whilst no one is looking? I think I deserve a medal for not doing so!

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From my wee kitchen breakfast bar to Annette’s fabulous home, decked out to the max in the Jubilee theme (she really should have been a party planner!) – here is the Raspberry Ripple cake in its resplendent glory. Perhaps I should employ Annette to construct all my blog photograph backgrounds from now on? 😉

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And the second medal on my lapel should be for this, this teeny tiny slither of cake I am nestling on my knee and if you look very closely, you’ll see the tip of Hungry Hubby’s trainer – as I shared this piece with him! Oh yes, I am taking my weight loss quest very, very seriously 😉

So pull on your fat pants and treat yourself!

Raspberry Ripple Cake - a light and fluffy vanilla cake filled with raspberry jam and frosted with ripples of both white chocolate and raspberry Italian meringue buttercream
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Raspberry Ripple Cake

A light and fluffy vanilla cake filled with raspberry jam and both white chocolate, and raspberry Italian meringue buttercream. Perfect for a summer party!

Course: Dessert
Cuisine: English
Servings: 16
: 646 kcal
Author: Just Jo
Ingredients
For the cake
  • 335 g soft butter
  • 400 g caster sugar (golden caster sugar is lovely here)
  • 6 large eggs, separated
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 335 g plain flour
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 185 ml milk
For the frosting
  • 160 g seedless raspberry jam
  • 80 g white chocolate melted
  • 250 g caster sugar
  • 4 large egg whites
  • 375 g butter
  • Extra 1 tbsp of jam
Instructions
For the cake:

  1. Grease and line three 20cm cake tins. Preheat the oven to 180˚C.

  2. Whisk the butter and 300g of the caster sugar together for at least 5-7 minutes in a stand mixer until extremely pale, fluffy and all the sugar dissolved into the butter.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside. 

  4. Beat in three of the egg yolks and when fully incorporated, add the other three. Add the vanilla then fold in the flour and baking powder into the creamed butter and sugar in thirds, alternating with the milk until both are used up.

  5. In a clean bowl, whisk the 6 eggs whisk until they form soft peaks then whisk in the remaining 100g of sugar very gradually until stiff glossy peaks form.

  6. Fold this gently into your cake batter then softly divide the mixture between the tins equally.

  7. Bake for approx 30-35 minutes at 180˚C until risen, pale golden brown and spring back to touch in the middle - cool for 10 mins before removing from tins to finish cooling on racks.
For the frosting:

  1. Put the sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan with 120ml of water and bring to the boil with a candy thermometer - when it reaches 115˚C, start whisking your egg whites on medium-high speed.

  2. When it reaches 121˚C ("hard ball" stage) it will be bubbling and caramel brown - remove from the heat and very, very carefully pour onto the egg whites, now whisking away on high speed. *Avoid the whisk or it will solidify as you pour onto the relatively cold metal*

  3. Continue whisking on high speed until the bowl had cooled to room temp - it could take upto 10 minutes for this to occur.
  4. Now turn the mixer on low-medium speed and spoon in the butter a spoon at a time until all incorporated - don't worry if it somewhat deflates, just turn the speed up one more time and whisk away until thick, silky and luscious.
  5. Divide the frosting between two bowls - mix the melted chocolate into one and half the jam into the other (I don't mix it in very much to preserve the ripple effect).
To assemble:

  1. Place one sponge on a plate/cake board. Spread with half the remaining jam, then half the white chocolate buttercream.

  2. Place the second sponge on top and repeat, finishing with the third sponge (keep a little of the white chocolate buttercream to use to swirl into the finished cake design if you like).

  3. Do a thin crumb coat all over the cake with some of the frosting, then use a spatula to put the rest on the cake very haphazardly and not smoothing too much - again to preserve the ripple.

  4. I then took some extra jam and the remaining white choc buttercream and added swirls and ripples to give a final layer of depth to the appearance of the cake.
Recipe Notes

Store in the fridge until needed then take out 30 minutes before to take the chill off.

Adapted from Edd Kimber, The Boy Who Bakes

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