Chocolate and Raspberry Triple Layer Cake with White Chocolate Flavoured Cream and Freeze Dried Raspberries

I am pretty terrible when it comes to giving people gifts on time, I mean I have a good excuse, I like to make the presents I give people and I am the biggest procrastinator known to man. This year I’m trying to step my game up, be a little more organised, the idea of it is great but the execution not so much. My friend Sophie, also known as the majority of the hands on this blog is usually great at giving me presents, and they’re always on time and I am the crumby one so this year instead of feeling bad I actually tried to get it all done on time. I will say everything was still a little last minute, I came up with the idea of what to give her a couple of months ago and still a couple of days before I was seeing her I was making a cushion. I made the cake and some truffles the day before I saw her and I made the card and wrapped the presents a couple of hours before she arrived but it was still done before she arrived, all laid out by the TV like it was Christmas morning. What I’m trying to say is; it still counts. If only I had pictures to show you the packaging, I was giddy wrapping it, I bought brown paper bags and grey twine specifically, I even went as far as to make a box that perfectly fitted the mug to fit in another bigger box with the truffles sitting neatly in bags next to it. Okay so this blog post is not about the presents, it’s actually about the cake. This was a bit of an experiment, like I said, I went all out, three layers, something I’d never tried before a mysterious pink layer. Obviously you know from the title it’s actually raspberry flavoured not a mysterious pink layer. I did have a couple of mishaps, I tried to make dairy free white chocolate mousse without really putting much thought into it and it deflated so I had to run to tesco and buy some cream and made white chocolate cream instead. I also ran out of cream for the top and had to make a second batch and because I could only find the star nozzle, not the round one I ended up scraping the cream off and re-piping it because it looked like something from the 60s but shhh.

Raspberry sponge 150ml raspberry yogurt 150ml vegetable oil 100g frozen raspberries, thawed 200g self raising flour 140g caster sugar 2 large eggs pink food colouring, optional Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 Grease and line the bottom of an 8inch round sandwich tin. Put the yogurt, oil and raspberries in a food processor and blend. Sieve into a measuring jug until you reach 300ml to remove the seeds and discard the rest. Mix the dry ingredients plus a pinch of salt. Crack the eggs then add in the raspberry mixture and mix until smooth, if using quickly stir in some food colouring. Bake in a preheated oven for 35-40 minutes.

Chocolate sponges 8oz butter/margarine 4oz caster sugar 4oz light muscavado sugar 6 ¼ oz self raising flour 1 ¾ cocoa powder 1 ½ tsps baking powder 4 large eggs Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 Grease and line the bottom of two 8 inch round sandwich tins. Cream the butter/margarine and sugar together until fluffy, add the rest of the ingredients and mix together until combined. Pour into the tin and tap on the worktop. Bake in a preheated oven for 25-30 minutes.

White chocolate cream 450ml double cream 110g white chocolate 1 ½ tbsps freeze dried raspberries, plus extra for sprinkling Melt the white chocolate and set aside to cool. Whip the cream until soft peaks appear. Once the white chocolate has cooled to room temperature mix into the cream then fold in the freeze dried raspberries.

Chocolate icing 50g butter at room temperature 120 icing sugar 25g cocoa powder 1 tbsp water Beat the butter until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes with an electric mixer), slowly add the icing sugar until all of it is combined. Add the cocoa powder and water and mix until everything is fully incorporated.

Assembling Once the cakes have cooled, roughly level the tops if needed. Start with a chocolate layer and place on a board, spread a thin layer of the chocolate icing over the sponge then spread a third of the cream over the chocolate icing. Stack the raspberry sponge on top of the cream and repeat the process. Once you've placed the second chocolate sponge on top cover this with chocolate icing. Place the remaining cream into a piping bag with a large nozzle or hole, pipe the cream around the outside of the sponge and sprinkle with freeze dried raspberries. Keep refrigerated.