Sunday, January 7, 2018

White Chocolate, Orange & Cranberry Cake

Although the month of stuffing your face with chocolate and mince pies is over that doesn't mean I won't share delicious baking recipes on the blog. I made this cake for Christmas at my mums and it's the best one I ever made. It took me quite a while baking all the sponges and layering the final cake with a perfect, neat coat of icing, but I was so happy when I saw the way it turned out.

It's supposed to be a snazzy Christmas cake, but I think it could be a summer cake too. You can mix up the cranberries in the recipe for raspberries to make it even more summery. Everyone at our Christmas dinner loved the cake and I was so proud when I put the last pieces of decoration on top. I got this recipe from BBC Good Food, with a bit of my own adjustments. Hope you will love it as much as I do!


What do you need?
The cake
300g salted butter, chopped + extra for the tins
200g white chocolate, broken into small pieces
500g plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
500g white caster sugar
300ml natural yogurt
4 tsp vanilla extract
1 large orange, zested and juiced
6 large eggs
4 tbsp milk

The compote
200g cranberries
150g white caster sugar

The icing
200g white chocolate, broken into small pieces
500g salted butter, softened
650g icing sugar
280g cream cheese

The decoration
Meringue kisses (check out this recipe here)
Christmas chocolate
Cake decoration (the gold ones are from Dr. Oetker)

Oven: 180C/160C fan/gas 4

How long will this take me: With all the baking, waiting and decorating I would say 4/5 hours. Unless you are a Bake Off queen, then you will do this in no-time!

Line your two 20cm cake tins with baking parchments and grease the sides with butter. Melt 150g butter with 100g of white chocolate au bain-marie and stir until completely melted.

Whilst that is melting, measure 250g flour, 2 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp bicarb soda and 250g sugar in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and add 150g yogurt, 2 tsp vanilla extract, half the orange zest and juice, 3 eggs and 2 tbsp milk. Mix everything together with a whisk and stir in the melted butter and chocolate.

When your mixture is smooth, divide it between the two cake tins and bake them in the oven, on the middle shelf, for 20-25 minutes. Push a skewer into the cakes to check if they are done -it should come out clean-. Our oven is really tiny so I baked them one at a time, which is probably why it took me so damn long to make.

Let the cakes cool in their tins for 5 minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack. Clean the tins and repeat the steps for the cake batter to make two more sponges. I actually made the cakes two days before Christmas and wrapped them in a good layer of cling foil and it worked perfectly fine.

To make the compote, simmer the cranberries and sugar in a small pan for 4-5 minutes until jammy. Turn of the heat and let it cool down. I also made the compote beforehand and it honestly saved me so much time.

To make the icing, melt the white chocolate, in the microwave or au bain-marie, and set aside to cool a little. Mash the soft butter and icing sugar together and beat smooth and fluffy with a mixer. Add the white chocolate and cream cheese and keep on mixing until smooth. This recipe actually makes A LOT of icing.

To assemble the cake, place one sponge on a cake board and place the other sponges on top with a little icing and the cranberry compote in between each sponge. Use the sponge with the neatest edge, flipped upside down, on top to give the cake a good shape. (never knew this, such a good tip).

Pile about half the remaining icing on top of the cake and use a palette knife to spread it thinly over the top and down the sides of the cake. This will be the crumb coat, it catches any crumbs, making sure the final layer looks clean and professional -which is what you want-. Put the cake in the fridge for about 10-20 minutes to chill. Then add the final layer of icing.

You can decorate the cake however you like. I decide to mimic the photo from the recipe a bit and it turned out pretty good if I say so myself.  It's hands down the prettiest cake I have ever made and I loved making the last layer of icing so perfect and pretty. Can't wait to make more layer cakes soon!

What is your favourite baking recipe?

2 comments:

  1. Oh wow that cake looks delicious! I'm currently craving a black forest cake but reading this post was good too! xx

    -Sophie | Cherries & Perfume 

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for reading and commenting on my blog. I read and appreciate all of them!
If you have any questions I will try to answer them asap.

X Marjolein

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