Week 34 and 35 - Orange and white chocolate cake AND Boozy raspberry victoria sponge

Well last week was a double header for cakes because there were two very important occasions...the prize giving/final of the inter office bake off and my lovely friend Claire's hen party so there was nothing else for it, I simply had to do a double bake week!

Bake 34

Orange and white chocolate cake

You will remember from week 29 that my work were having a weekly inter office cake off bake off and this past week was the prize giving for the winners which obviously had to be cake! I offered to help out my colleague Gemma who organised the competition by baking the prize, and being a sporting organisation the only thing appropriate was to make a winners podium cake. I made the first position (a triple layer cake) while Gemma made the second (a two layer chocolate cake) and a single layer victoria sponge for the third position. All three were topped with cream coloured icing (traditional butter cream for Gems and white chocolate crème fraîche for mine) and then sprayed gold with edible cake glitter.

The final touch was the ginger bread athletes made by Gemma, decorated with their medals, proudly standing on top of their winners podium.

The results were announced in Eurovision style reverse order and slightly embarrassingly for me as I was reading them out my team won! The medical and anti-doping cakes were victorious!!

So importantly though how do you make a winners podium cake....

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5524/orange-and-white-chocolate-sponge

Ingredients

(I used double of all of these quantities because I was making a triple layer cake, I kept the fourth cake for us to enjoy at home but I thought I would leave the quantities as standard here in case you want to try it for your self)

• 175g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
• 175g golden caster sugar
• finely grated zest 4 orange and juice of 1
• 4 egg, separated
• 100g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g ground almonds (a member of the team at work is allergic to nuts so I was going to try to take the almonds out but some of the comments on the recipe said you have to replace this with flour because it can impact on the rise so I decided against trying to take it out on the first attempt. I had to disappoint my colleague but I thought it was best to follow Mary Berry’s advice to never change a recipe before you have tried it the traditional way the first time).

For the icing

• 200g white chocolate
• 200ml crème fraîche

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter two 20cm round sandwich tins and line the bases with baking parchment. Tip the sugar into a mixing bowl and add the softened butter and orange zest. Beat for 1 min or so until pale and fluffy, then beat in the egg yolks. Sift the flour and baking powder over the cake mixture and fold in lightly. Finally, fold in the almonds and orange juice. Whisk the egg whites until they just hold their shape. Fold one-third of the egg white into the cake mix, using the whisk. Repeat with another third, then the final third. Take care not to over-mix or you will lose the lightness of the egg whites.
2. Divide the cake mix between the prepared tins and bake for 30-35 mins. Cool in the tin for 5 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack, peel off the lining paper and leave to cool.
3. To make the icing, melt the chocolate over a pan of barely simmering water or in the microwave on High for 1½ mins, stirring every 30 secs, then leave to cool. Whip the crème fraîche until thick, then fold in the white chocolate. Set one cake on a serving plate or cake stand. Spoon half the icing onto the cake and top with the other cake. Spread with the rest of the icing, then allow to set in the fridge for at least 1 hr.
4. If you want to make the decorative curls, melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water or in a microwave and spread thinly over a baking tray. Leave the tray in the fridge for the chocolate to harden a bit, then use a fish slice or angled knife blade to scrape chocolate curls. Pile the curls in the middle of the cake and serve cut into slices.

As I had to double the recipe to get the triple layers I did have to spend quite a long time zesting the 8 oranges which was less than ideal but other than that it was relatively straightforward. The cakes didn't really rise very much though so I think if you did just have the two standard layers then it might be a bit small looking.

Also, with the icing having crème fraîche in it I wasn't really sure if you were supposed to store the cake in the fridge the whole time?!? I did keep it in the fridge and it was still good but it does take away a bit of the fluffy, lightness of the cake but in general it was zesty and yummy, a bit like carrot cake really.

Victory in the cake off felt sweet but being the gracious winners we are we shared it with the whole team so really everyone who took part were the winners and got to enjoy the cake.

Now for the second bake of the week....officially week 35’s

Boozy raspberry Victoria sponge

After coming down from the high of victory the weekend was spent having a wonderful time making some new friends and celebrating at my old colleague Claire's hen party. It was only fair that I brought her a bake as she is a blog reader and with it being her hen it deserved a little drop of something boozy to liven up the usual mix!! I got the idea from one of my best friends Lydia who writes a wonderful blog called 'Todays the day I....' in which she does something new everyday in New York. A few weeks ago Lydia had alcoholic cupcakes for the first time so I thought I could give the concept a go myself. A bit of google searching didn't really provide many recipes so I thought I would throw caution to the wind and just wing it by adding some liquor and fresh raspberries to a normal victoria sponge recipe .....Well there were mixed results.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1997/classic-victoria-sandwich

Ingredients

For the cake

• 200g caster sugar
• 200g softened butter
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 200g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp milk
• I had no idea if adding these would be a good idea but....
• Handful of fresh raspberries
• 1.5tbsp (ish) Chambord

For the filling

• 200g white chocolate
• 200ml crème fraîche
• 340g jar good-quality raspberry jam
• Fresh raspberries soaked in Chambord
• 3 tsp (ish) Chambord

Method

1. Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Butter two 20cm sandwich tins and line with non-stick baking paper. In a large bowl, beat all the cake ingredients together until you have a smooth, soft batter.
2. Divide the mixture between the tins, smooth the surface with a spatula or the back of a spoon, then bake for about 20 mins until golden and the cake springs back when pressed. Turn onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.
3. To make the filling, beat the butter until smooth and creamy, then gradually beat in icing sugar. Beat in vanilla extract if you’re using it. Spread the butter cream over the bottom of one of the sponges, top it with jam and sandwich the second sponge on top. Dust with a little icing sugar before serving. Keep in an airtight container and eat within 2 days.

The lovely bride to be!

As I was just guessing quantities I had no idea how it would turn out until we cut into it and to be honest I was a bit disappointed with it. The alcoholic raspberries were tasty but the cake turned out a bit heavy which might have been the raspberries in the batter changing the consistency/quantities and making it lose some of its fluffiness.

The icing had a hint if an alcoholic taste but I probably could have been braver with my quantities. It would also have been nice if it had a more of a pink colour so maybe I should have added food colouring to help the alcohol along.

Anyway, all the hens made the right yummy noises but I'm not convinced it was very good. At least we had a super fun weekend and the champagne that went along with the cake went down a treat!

The double bake this week means I have one in the bank for this week so there might be a week off for the blog. See you in two! Linds Xx