Fruit topped chocolate and vanilla swirled sponge

strawberrycakeA couple of weeks ago I had my first try at making chocolate covered strawberries, they were so yummy that we ate them all within a day. I tried lots of different toppings and had lots of fun so I thought I’d expand the idea and make a summer cake using them.

The cake was a chocolate and vanilla swirled sponge with vanilla frosting. I used Cadbury’s chocolate fingers around the sides and topped it with raspberries and milk and white chocolate covered strawberries.

For the cake I used 2 buttered and lined 8 inch cake tins and preheated the oven to 180C.

Ingredients:

250 g Caster Sugar

250g Unsalted butter (softened)

250g Self raising flour

4 eggs (beaten)

1and a half tsp vanilla essence

Splash of whole milk

30g Cocoa powder

Method:

  • In a free standing mixer cream the butter and sugar together until smooth
  • Add the vanilla essence to the beaten egg and slowly add to the mixture.
  • With the mixer on a low speed add the flour a spoonful at a time.
  • Add the whole milk a little at a time until the mixture falls easily from a spoon – I tend to do this section by hand.
  • Now split the mixture in two and add the cocoa powder to one half.
    A couple of quick notes here – this is the lazy way of doingΒ  it as really I should make a separate vanilla mix and chocolate mix, reducing the flour in the chocolate mix to allow for the cocoa. Instead I just add extra milk to the chocolate mix to return it to the right consistency. Also 30g of cocoa is a guestimate as I did it by eye, just adding cocoa until I was happy with the colour of the mixture, do add more if you think the mix looks too pale as the idea is to create an obvious colour difference.
  • As mentioned above, add a little whole milk to the chocolate mix to bring it back to the same consistency as the vanilla mix.
  • When adding the batter to the pre-lined tins alternate large spoonfuls of the chocolate and vanilla batters. Once you are happy that they are divided evenly between the two tins carefully swirl the mixture with a spoon or spatula. Be careful not to mix too vigorously or you will just end up with a pale chocolate cake.
  • Bake at 180c for 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean then turn out onto wire racks.

For the frosting I used my normal recipe of

120g unsalted butter
375g icing sugar
37ml whole milk (I know it’s an odd number but it’s 1.5x my normal frosting numbers)
2 tsp vanilla essence

  • Cream the butter and sugar in a free-standing mixer on a low speed
  • Mix the vanilla essence with the milk and add to the butter cream while continuing to mix
  • Beat the mixture on a high speed for at least 5 minutes

sliceI used the frosting between the two layers of the cake and on the top and sides. As you can see in the picture I didn’t bother to level the cake but if you particularly want it to look perfect when cut for a special occasion use a cake leveller (it has the added bonus of leftover bits that you get to eat straight away). Instead I turned the top layer upside down which, if you fill in the middle with frosting, gives you a nice flat top to work with.

The chocolate fingers stood up around the edge were held in place by the frosting, I’d suggest doing this section once the cake is on the board or plate it will be served on as moving it afterwards meant I had to rearrange them a bit.

strawberries3 strawberriesThe chocolate strawberries method is based on the method here, I used floristry foam to hold them as they set and drizzled melted white chocolate over the top of the milk chocolate using a spoon. A bit of tinfoil underneath saved me from having to clear up loads of chocolate drips.

Once they had set it was just a case or arranging them on top of the cake and filling in the gaps with fresh raspberries.

I’m adding this post on the teatime treats linkey for run by What Kate Baked & Lavender and Lovage and also to the calendar cakes linkey run byΒ Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes, the theme for both is fruit.
Tea Time Treats Challenge Logocalendar-cakes
 

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