Summery white choc strawberry cake

It's July. It might be peeing it down with rain outside, with a rumble of thunder and flash of lightning every few minutes; I might be wearing a jumper and socks; I might be contemplating a hot chocolate later....but dammit, I will make summer come into the kitchen, with a slice of this delicious White Chocolate and Strawberry Cake. This fits very nicely into the Alphabakes 'W' challenge for July, and also into the Tea Time Treats summer cake stall challenge. There's nothing like a fabulous cake and a couple of cakey challenges to make you forget about how pants this UK summer is turning out to be.

White Chocolate and Stawberry cake

I made this cake for a friend's 30th birthday. We got him a couple of nice gifts, but these days I love to give a cake too. It's such a personal touch, and really cheers people up - everyone loves that extra bit of effort and care that a cake takes, and it's great to share it out amongst friends and family too. A bunch of cupcakes were made for the party too, with elaborate pink frosting, but I only had half. The frosting made me feel a bit sick, and I think a whole bottle of red food colouring was used to try to get a real red colour - it turned out pink anyway, and there are supposed to be limits to how much of that liquid colouring you use!! Sometimes only a cake will do.

I haven't made a cake with melted chocolate incorporated into the batter before - sure, I've used cocoa powder a million and one times, but this recipe was a bit different and I didn't know how it would turn out. It was delicious - sweet and chocolatey without being overpowering, allowing the sweetness of the fresh strawberries to really sing on their own.

Happy birthday cake!

I did whip the cream too much. I set it off in my Kitchenaid mixer, and was busy arranging the strawbs on the base of the cake when I heard the sound change - I didn't reach it quickly enough and it was overwhipped a little. But no one noticed apart from me.

I scoffed two pieces. One at the alloted cake eating time, and another at about midnight, after a few glasses of vino. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I credit late-night cake to my lack of hangover the next day. I'd recommend it.

This recipe comes from 'The Great British Bake Off - How to Bake' that accompanied series 2. 

150g white choc
200g marg
3 eggs
150g caster sugar
zest of 1/2 orange
200g self-raising flour

Preheat oven to 180C (160 fan).
Melt the chocolate. This has to be done very delicately, as too much heat and the choc will go lumpy. I stopped just as it started to melt, and stirred manically for a while, until the residual heat melted it all.
Add the marg and stir until melted. 
Whisk eggs until frothy. Add the sugar and orange zest and whisk until very thick and mousse-like.
Add the chocolate mix to the egg mix and stir briefly.
Sift flour in and fold with a metal spoon.
Divide mixture between two 20.5cm tins (As usual, my tins are too small - 18cm - so I also made some fairy cakes with the mixture).
Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes.

For the filling and topping, whip 200ml double cream.
Slice 2/3 of a 400g tub of strawberries, and mix with zest and juice of half and orange and a tablespoon of caster sugar. Leave for about 10 minutes to marinade.
Spoon the sliced strawbs on to the bottom cake layer. Top with half of the whipped cream. Place the other cake half on top. Spread rest of cream over the top, and decorate with the remaining whole strawberries.
To finish, grate some white chocolate over the top.
Eat. Eat some more. Maybe have another slice. Enjoy.

Tea Time Treats is hosted in alternative months by Karen at Lavender & Lovage (this month's host) and Kate at What Kate Baked. The Alphabakes challenge is hosted in alternative months by Caroline Makes (this month's host) and Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker. 

Fairy cakes too

 

Get ready for cake club

Tomorrow I will be attending the first meeting of my local Clandestine Cake Club - a new phenomenon gripping the cake-baking nation. Find out more about CCC here.

Sneak peak of my CCC cake...

I don't yet know how many cake makers will be joining me at the secret location to eat, talk about, and show off cakes, but however many people turn up, I'm looking forward to meeting new people and hopefully making some new cake-loving friends.

Requirements of the club include baking a cake that can be cut into 8 - 12 slices, bringing a cake stand or similar recepticle for showing off said cake, and then eating other people's cakes. Now that sounds like my sort of club.

The club has featured on BBC1's 'The One Show' and soon will be featured in 'Women's Own' magazine, and the idea has really captured the imagination of bakers across the country. A fun and informal way to meet like-minded people just to enjoy each others' creations and talk about why we love to bake. For me, baking is a way to relax, learn new techniques, hone skills, and enjoy lovely cakes. I've found baking to be a way to escape from the stresses of everyday life, to help me overcome impending bouts of depression that haunt me some days, and a way to feel fulfilled that as yet a career has yet to do. Seeing the faces of your friends and family as they devour some tasty creation that you made fills the heart with happiness. I can say, "I made that, I did that, I'm good at something". It's also great to test my perfectionist nature, as inevitably things will go wrong in the kitchen, the cookies will only taste good if you dunk them in tea otherwise you risk a trip to the dentist, or the cake sags and is a bit claggy, or perhaps the cheesecake doesn't quite set and slides off the plate. But, who cares? I'm not a professional baker or chef, and everyone still loves the tasty things even if in my eyes they've gone hoo-har.

I will be taking to the meeting a rhubarb & lemon cake, topped with whipped cream and lemon curd. I'm more nervous about this cake than any other I've made, but hopefully it'll taste yummy and I won't get thrown out of the club on its first outing. It smells nice, I know that much. I won't share all the pics or the recipe yet, as it should stay a secret until after the club meeting...

Time for picnics

With Spring officially sprung, and some lovely warm weather over the last few days, I've been desperate to jolly off for a good ol' picnic. We had planned one for Mother's Day - we were going to visit Sandringham and have a great treat of cakes, sarnies, and strawberries under the watchful eye of the Queen (if she'd been there...). But the weather that weekend was dull and grey, so picnic was postponed.

Hopefully the ongoing project of the other half's VW Golf cabriolet will be completed this summer (it's been going on for about 4 years now!). As soon as the car is ready, we are off to the coast with picnic basket in hand, I'll make lots of goodies, we'll put the top down on the car and zoom! Off we'll go! That's the plan anyway.

In readiness for soft-top car completion, I've been looking for a fancy picnic basket to make the scene complete - we've decided we'll wait until the car's ready before treating ourselves to a really lovely one. I've found the most wonderful picnic basket company, Life's a Picnic, and their beautiful baskets are definitely on top of my 'wanted' list now.

The willow baskets are all unique and really sum-up the brilliance of a British summer. Handmade and vintage, I'm really covetting one of the baskets, although I don't know whether I'd prefer a teatime theme, or maybe one complete with Champagne flutes, for those extra special picnics...

They're not cheap, but then you really do get what you pay for in this life, and I think these look like they'd last a lifetime. I saw one in a local shop recently, and it was about a quarter of the price - but it was so badly designed that when the lid closed, it hit the glasses inside (I know this, because I closed the lid, and I heard glass smash...and quickly exited the shop).

They also do lovely cake stands. I have about 4 cake stands already, but you can never have too many - I certainly bake enough cakes to fill them all.

So, if anyone wants to treat me to a summer present, maybe if you missed my birthday in January, you know what to do....!