A light and fluffy vanilla cake filled with raspberry jam and both white chocolate, and raspberry Italian meringue buttercream. Perfect for a summer party!
- 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
- 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
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Grease and line three 20cm cake tins. Preheat the oven to 180˚C.
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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.
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Sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside.
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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.
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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.
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Fold this gently into your cake batter then softly divide the mixture between the tins equally.
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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.
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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.
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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*
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Continue whisking on high speed until the bowl had cooled to room temp - it could take upto 10 minutes for this to occur.
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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.
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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).
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Place one sponge on a plate/cake board. Spread with half the remaining jam, then half the white chocolate buttercream.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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