Valentine’s Day is coming, and that means you should probably do lovey-dovey things like feed your loved one pudding. Alternatively, you can just feed yourself pudding. In fact, the latter might be better, as it means you don’t have to share. In any case, this raspberry and white chocolate ripple cake will fit the bill; moist and fruity and filled with silky white chocolate buttercream.
Ingredients
For the cake
- 170g self-raising flour
- 170g caster sugar
- 170g margarine
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon vanilla essence
- 200g fresh or frozen raspberries
For the buttercream
- 200g white chocolate
- 250g icing sugar
- 250g butter
To decorate
- A handful of raspberries
- 2 tablespoons raspberry jam
Method
- Preheat the oven to 160°, or gas mark 3, and grease a cake tin of your choice.
- Put your raspberries in a heavy bottomed pan over a low heat, and cook down until most of the juice has evaporated and you have a fairly thick raspberry paste. Put aside to cool.
- Sift the flour, sugar and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the margarine, crack in the eggs and pour in the vanilla essence. With a handheld mixer, beat until light and fluffy.
- Take a third of the mix and put in a separate bowl. Add the raspberry paste to this mix and beat again.
- Pour the plain mix into the tin and level out. Drop spoonfuls of the raspberry mix on top of the plain mix, and with a spoon ripple it through, marbling the two mixes together.
- Bake for half an hour, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool completely.
- Melt the chocolate, either in a bain marie or slowly in a microwave on a low temperature. Put to one side to cool.
- Cube the butter into a bowl, and then slowly sift in the icing sugar. Cream the two together until smooth. Stir in the white chocolate and leave in the fridge for an hour to firm up a bit.
- Split the sponge in half, and then spread over your cooled buttercream over the bottom half. Leave some aside to decorate with. Spread some jam over the top if you like for an extra hit of raspberry. Put the top layer back on, and pipe on the remaining the white chocolate and some raspberry jam. Scatter some raspberries over and enjoy!
Katie Dawtry