If you were to ask your grandmother how to make a basic vanilla butter cake, she would probably say “1, 2, 3, 4”. Unless you were my Grannie, who would have made me a stiff G & T and changed the topic. Grannie was a fantastic woman, and an inspiration, but not much of a cook. Her date scones were… well, let’s just say diamonds aren’t the toughest substance known to man. Scientists just never got their hands on one of those scones.
Basic vanilla cake couldn’t be easier:
1 cup of butter (250g)
2 cups of sugar
3 cups of self raising flour
4 eggs
Of course, you don’t add them in that order. Start by creaming the butter and the sugar with 1 tbsp. vanilla. When it’s mixed to a lovely light, fluffy consistency, add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Finally add in the flour, dampening it down with enough milk to get it to a nice, thick cream consistency.
Bake in a 180°C oven 45 minutes to an hour, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
How to make it more exciting!
Elderflower & Lemon Cake with White Chocolate Cream Icing, Lemon Curd drizzle, candied lemon & rosemary flowers
Elderflower & Lemon Cake
Using the basic recipe above, substitute the zest of 1 lemon for the vanilla. Add slightly less sugar (1 1/2 cups rather than 2 as the cordial is quite sweet).
In the last step, instead of using milk to loosen the mixture, add elderflower cordial.
Bake as usual.
While the cake is baking, make a syrup using equal parts caster sugar and elderflower cordial (1/2 cup of each should be more than enough). Place in a microwave safe jug or saucepan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside to cool.
White Chocolate Cream Icing
As we’re using a fair amount of sweetened cordial, I didn’t want to do a buttercream, as the final cake would be ridiculously sweet. I also didn’t want to do a cream cheese icing, as the cheese would overwhelm the delicate flavour of the elderflower. After a couple of attempts, I think this is the perfect icing for this cake.
150g white chocolate
400g mascarpone
100g double cream
zest of 1/2 lemon
400g icing sugar
60ml elderflower cordial
Melt the white chocolate and set aside to cool slightly. Mix together the mascarpone, cream, zest, icing sugar and cordial. The mixture should be the consistency of thick cream. Add more icing sugar or cordial, depending on how stiff your mixture is. Taste it too – that should be the best guide of whether you need more cordial for flavour.
Add a bit of the mixture to the white chocolate and stir. It might seize up a bit, but don’t worry, keep mixing and add a bit more of the cream mixture until it starts to loosen up again. Once it’s flowing more smoothly, add to the rest of the cream mixture, stirring until well combined. Put into the refrigerator to set a bit before piping.
Lemon Curd
You can buy lemon curd, but it’s really easy to make. For this cake, with leftovers, I made a half quantity of this recipe.
Candied Lemon
Put 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves then bring to the boil. Add slices of lemon and cook for around 15 minutes until the whites of the lemon are slightly translucent. Fish them out and leave to cool on parchment paper. The leftover syrup is lemon flavoured and could be used for an extra drizzle. I tried to make lemon honeycomb, but it was an odd flavour and I don’t recommend it.
To Assemble
Slice your cake horizontally into however many layers you want. Place the first layer on your serving plate, the brush liberally with the elderflower syrup. Top with a good layer of the white chocolate cream icing. Drizzle over some lemon curd. Repeat until all your layers are assembled. Cover the cake with icing, smoothing the sides it as much as you can, though the top won’t matter too much as it will be covered. Leave in the fridge to set.
Once your cake is set, load the rest of your white chocolate icing into a piping bag with a Wilton 1M tip (or whatever tip you like!). Pipe spiral circles, starting in the middle and you will miraculously have what looks like roses. Magic!
Place the cooled lemon curd into a zip lock bag, cut off the end of one of the corners, then dot and drizzle it strategically around the cake. Arrange the candied lemon slices as you will, then dot over rosemary flowers.
A note on rosemary flowers: I used these as they were flowering in my garden in August and are edible. As it turns out, they are delicious! If you don’t have a rosemary bush in your garden, go for a walk around the neighbourhood and you’re sure to find one as they are everywhere. They are so pretty and made the cake.
The Curated Condiment 