Ingredients
Ingredients
325g plain flour
25g cornflour
4½ tsp baking powder
225g butter, at room temperature
400g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp almond extract
5 medium egg whites, lightly beaten
300ml whole milk
300g butter, at room temperature
625g icing sugar
450g full-fat cream cheese
300g seedless raspberry jam
red paste food colouring
Direction
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
Grease 3 x 20cm round cake tins and
line the bases with baking parchment,
greasing the parchment, too.
In a medium bowl, stir together the
flour, cornflour, baking powder and ½ tsp
salt, then set aside. Put the butter in a
large bowl and beat for about 3 mins
until smooth and creamy. Add the caster
sugar and beat for about 5 mins until
light and fluffy. Add the extracts and
mix to combine.
Add the egg white a little at a time,
beating until fully combined. Sift in
the flour mixture in 3 additions,
alternating with the milk, but starting
and finishing with the flour.
Divide the mixture equally between the
prepared tins, gently levelling out. Bake
for 25-30 mins, or until the cake springs
back when lightly touched. Allow the
cakes to cool in the tins for 10 mins
before inverting onto a wire rack to
cool completely. The sponge is quite
delicate, so take care when working
with the cooled cake.
For the frosting, beat the butter for
about 3 mins until light and creamy. Add
the icing sugar, a little bit at a time, until
fully combined. Beat the frosting until
light and smooth, then add the cream
cheese and half the jam. Mix until just
smooth – don’t overmix as it will get
thinner the more you stir.
Put the first cake on a serving plate and
spread a layer of the frosting over the top.
Then spread half the remaining jam evenly
over the frosting. Repeat with the second
cake and finally place the third cake on
top. Cover the outside of the whole cake
with a thin layer of frosting using a palette
knife, and put it in the fridge while you
prepare the frosting for the decoration.
Divide the remaining frosting between
3 small bowls. Add about ½ tsp of red
paste colouring to one of the bowls and
about 1 tsp colouring to another bowl,
leaving the third bowl as it is. You want
to have three bowls of frosting with
clearly different colours.
To decorate the cakes, put each
frosting into a piping bag fitted with a
small round piping tip. Pipe 6 dots of
frosting up the cake, 2 of each colour,
with the darkest at the base of the cake.
Use a teaspoon or small palette knife to
smear the frosting to the right. Repeat
the piping process, moving the dots up
one so that as you pipe around the cake
the colour will graduate in a swirl. For
the top, pipe 2 rings of the darker pink
dots around the outside, spreading the
frosting in the same fashion, followed
by 2 rings of the medium pink dots, and
finish with the lighter frosting in the
middle. Will keep for up to 3 days, chilled.
