White Chocolate & Raspberry Celebration Cake

Again I am still do Blog Post delayed catch ups, this one is from my daughter's 4th birthday.  She requested raspberry cake.... again. Along with Orange Sponge Cupcakes.  So here is the cake I made for the bottom layer in her Lalaloopsy Birthday Party Cake.

This cake tastes delicious, but I ensure I use a good quality white chocolate, I find the cheaper cooking ones just taste bitter a bit like cardboard.  So my fav is Cadbury Dream, but my 2nd Choice is Nestle Plaistowe.

White Chocolate & Raspberry Celebration Cake

250g Castor Sugar
180g Butter - room temp
465g Plain Flour (less 3 Tbsp)
3 Tbsp Cornflour
3 tsp Baking Powder
3 Eggs
375ml Milk (I used 50% lite milk & 50% Buttermilk) - room temp
270g White Chocolate (Good Quality, I use Cadbury Dream) - chopped
Raspberries - Frozen

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Grease
and flour cake tin, I used a 10 inch springform pan.

Cream the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer on medium speed.  When pale and fluffy you can add in the eggs one at a time until fully combined.

Sift your dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and whisk to ensure the raising agent and cornflour are dispersed throughout flour well.

Take your milk and your dry ingredients and add them into the butter mixture in alternative additions, once fully combined take the bowl out of the electric mixer.

Chop your white chocolate up into very fine pieces and stir into the mix with a wooden spoon.  Next take your frozen raspberries and stir them lightly through the batter.

Pour the mix into your prepared cake tin, and place into the preheated oven, and bake for 45-55 minutes.  Always check the centre of the cake with a wooden skewer to ensure the centre is cooked and not raw, this is done by sticking it in when you pull it out it should be clean without mixture stuck to it.  Your should turn out the cake once it has cooled for at least 15 minutes.

Once your cake is completely cold (I usually also placed wrapped in gladwrap/clingfilm into the freezer to ensure it is extra cold), it is ready to frost, ice, ganache and if so desired cover in fondant like I did!

Here is the Dessert Buffet setup I did for my daughter's birthday, we went with a Hot Pink and Sunshine Yellow theme in her favourite doll sesries called Lalaloopsy Dolls.

And.... these are a close up of the uniquely self designed Cookies and Choc-Coated Oreos!

                             

 

And here are the Take Home Favours I made for all the little girls and boys!! Such fun!

I had the designs for my stickers, invitations and tags made through Lala Heaven on Etsy.com, here is her link : https://www.etsy.com/shop/LalaHeaven?ref=search_shop_redirect Katie is fabulous and fast, I found no request too great for her, she even personalised these gorgeous stickers of Dyna-Mite after she met the live doll, for me which I put on boxes of my daughter's favourite treat - Milk Duds!

Triple Lemon Vanilla Bean Layer Cake with a Lucious Lemon Buttercream

Firstly apologies for my delay in blogging, its been a while and I keep starting new posts and not publishing for one reason or another.... so here goes one.  I promise to catch up asap!

I have an abundance yet again of lemons from my Mum's tree, a massive bowl is overflowing on our dining table, leaves and all.   Last night I did an order of 2 dozen macarons using them, and it inspired me to bake something further today because the Lemon buttercream was soooo delish!  And before you ask... yes I had my handy helper under foot too.

So fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your hats, this one is super fast and uber tasty...

Triple Lemon Vanilla Bean Layer Cake

225g Butter - room temp, cubed
1 cup Castor Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
1 Lemon Rind
1 Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp Lemon Extract
6 Eggs
1 cup Milk (i used Lite Organic with a squeeze of a 1tsp of lemon juice in it)
3 cups Plain Flour (All-Purpose) - remove 3 tablespoons of flour
3 Tbsp Corn Flour (or corn starch)
2 tsp Baking Powder

Lucious Lemon Buttercream

125g Butter - room temp
3 ounces Cream Cheese
1 Whole Lemon - Zest & Juice
1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence
2 cups Pure Icing Sugar - sifted
2 cups Icing Sugar Mixture - sifted

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees.  Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans.

Place your butter and castor sugar in the mixer and cream them together, then add the vanilla, lemon rind, juice and extract and mix in well, it may appear curdled but keep going.  Add in your eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

Prepare, measure and have ready to go, your milk and also your dry ingredients sifted together (flour, corn flour/cornstarch and baking powder.  Alternatively add the milk and dry ingredients in 3 consecutive additions. Lightly mix at the end.

Pour your mixture into 2 equal sandwich pans.  Place in the oven on the middle oven shelf.  Bake for 35 minutes and check they are cooked through as every oven is different.

Buttercream - Place all ingredients into mixer and mix until it is pale, light and fluffy.  Frost your cake bottom layer first then top layer, and embellish with your choice of sprinkles or leave plain. Enjoy!