I don't think I've ever been so delighted to flip through a cook book, and I'm not just saying that because I was sent it and I love post. Not only is it utterly stunning - I simply adore the colour scheme; mint green and fuchsia pink complement each other so well and match my KitchenAid- but the recipes are by and large incredibly different to everything I normally encounter. For someone who loves to bake I'm supremely unadventurous, but after just a quick peruse of the recipes on offer I'm already stacking up a list of things I want to try, using ingredients I normally avoid.
Also, there's a fabulous section at the start outlining tips and explaining different baking terms, and most importantly they're accompanied by photographs. One of my main issues with most books is the lack of photographs - it's all well and good having a perfect picture of the finished product, but often the steps getting there can be confusing or a little misleading and could benefit from a visual aid. It really helps seeing a picture of the difference between a soft and stiff peak and how to fill a piping bag, step by step. The Great British Bake Off books are excellent in this respect as many recipes are photographed at each stage too. I know you should be able to follow the recipes without pictures, but sometimes it could just make life an awful lot easier.
I've been super busy lately but came home this week to spend my birthday in Cheshire with my parents. It's been a family tradition for as long as I can remember that I have to make my own birthday cake. This year I decided to forgo my usual Victoria Sponge or Lemon Drizzle and tried out Lily Vanilli's Zebra Cake. I've also never had a cake decorated as if by a five year old and covered in chocolate and sweets, so at 22 I figured it was about time to put that right.
This is a brilliant recipe that produces an amazing cake, it just takes a bit of faffing and requires either lots of bowls or the help of someone willing to do the washing up as you bake. I had neither, and as a result it took forever to make. However, when I make it again in the future I'll have all of my bowls (not divided between two kitchens in London and Cheshire) and it'll definitely take a fraction of the time!
Ingredients:
For the sponge:
260g unsalted butter, room temperature
420g caster sugar
4 eggs
430g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
240ml whole milk
30g cocoa powder
For the vanilla buttercream:
100g unsalted butter, softened
300g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
75ml double cream
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C or gas mark 6 and grease/line sandwich tins. The original recipe calls for 3 15cm round tins, but I used 2 20cm tins and it turned out fine.
(Also, I can't recommend Lakeland's Parchment Lined Foil enough - it makes lining tins so, so easy!)
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy for approximately 4 minutes.
Add the eggs and beat slowly at first and then on a higher setting until evenly incorporated, making sure to scrape down the bowl after each stage. Remove half the batter and set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together half of the flour, baking powder and salt.
Add half these dry ingredients to one of the bowls of batter and beat on a medium speed until incorporated. Add the vanilla and half of the milk, then the rest of the dry ingredients. This is the vanilla batter - set to one side.
Clean and dry your mixing bowl and put in the second half of the batter.
In another bowl whisk the remaining flour, baking powder and salt with the cocoa powder.
Repeat the process, adding half of the dry ingredients to the batter, then the milk, then the remaining dry ingredients. This is your chocolate batter.
To make the zebra stripes, spoon 3 tablespoons of the vanilla batter into the centre of each of your prepared cake tins.
Then add 3 tablespoons of the chocolate batter directly on top. The vanilla batter will spread out - I didn't trust this at first, but it definitely will!
Continue alternating batters with about 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixtures run out. Once you are done don't be tempted to level the top or merge the layers in any way. I wanted to but trusted the book and it was ultimately worth it!
Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave in the tins to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
Whilst the cake is in the oven, make the buttercream. Beat the butter alone for 4-5 minutes on a high speed.
Add the sugar, vanilla and cream and beat on a low speed to bring it together, then turn up and beat on high for another 2-3 minutes.
Refrigerate until ready to use.
Once you're ready to assemble your cake, remove the buttercream from the fridge and beat to soften up. Cut off the top of the cakes in order to level them and sandwich them together with about a quarter of the buttercream.
Cover the rest of the cake with the buttercream.
Either smooth the buttercream and serve, or decorate. I chose to decorate and went a little mad with chocolate fingers, smarties, buttons and biscuit dinosaurs. After all, you're only 22 once!
This recipe was ah-may-zing. Genuinely, the sponge was the best I've ever made by a long shot and the buttercream was insanely good. It's the only recipe I've ever tried where there was exactly the right ratio of sponge to buttercream, and it was really refreshing to not have a giant tub of buttercream left over! My only criticism was that the cake was huge, and that's only a problem because there's only 3 of us so it's lasted days. In future I'll half the recipe, but it's worth noting that it's actually supposed to serve 8.
Let me know if you give this recipe a try - it's visually very striking no matter how you decide to decorate it, and the flavours are fantastic. It was the perfect birthday cake: a unique twist on a classic sponge that's super easy to personalise.
Now that my birthday's out of the way, time to get back in the kitchen and try out another recipe… Anyone willing to take some baked goods off my hands and save my family from a cake coma?
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