First time I saw this cake on Masterchef Australia, I knew I had to try making it! This beautiful creation is a Katherine Sabbath design. Isn’t it just fabulous?
This gorgeous cake with freeze dried and fresh raspberries and white chocolate shards is a delight to hold. Swiss meringue butter cream adds a layer of silkiness to the dried raspberies
But it’s one of the most challenging cakes I tried making just because of the sheer size of it. If you like me don’t have a professional kitchen, you can halve the quanties and bake a smaller cake. Moreover, it’s quite tricky to get even stripes. When I baked the made them using just a piping bag and scraper but you can use a comb scraper like this one to get beautiful even stripes.
But despite the challenges, it was a really fun cake to bake and it tasted delicious!
I recommend making it over two day. Bake the cakes and chocolate shard on the first day. Make the swiss meringue the next day along with arranging it.
This is such a lovely raspberry cake with a twist that it will wow every guest at your party.
Happy baking friends!
Servings 30 people
Ingredients
Cake
- 500 gram self raising four
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 550 gram caster sugar
- 270 gram cold unsalted butter diced
- 450 gram full fat milk room temperature
- 11/4 tsp fresh lemon juice
- 9 egg whites room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract optional
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- 10 egg whites
- 900 gram butter unsalted
- 560 gram white caster sugar
- 30 gram freeze dried raspberries
Cake Decorations
- 50 fresh raspberries halved
- 20 gram freeze dried raspberries
White Chocolate Shards
- 500 gram baking whites chocolate
- 20 gram freeze dried raspberries
Instructions
Cake
- Grease three 16cm tin cakes
- Mix together flour and salt
- Mix in butter and sugar until it's white and fluffy. Add in the flour and mix it well
- Mix together milk, egg whites, lemon juice, vanilla essence and whisk together to combine
- Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and beat until combined well. About 3 minutes on a medium speed electric mixture and little longer if beating with hand
- Divide the batter equally into three parts and pour into the greased pans
- Bake in over at 175C for about 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean (Will take shorter if baking cakes separately)
- Remove cakes from the over and leave to cool for about five minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and leave to cool on a wire rack
- Half an hour before you ready to assemble the cakes, set the cakes in the freezer. It's easier to slice the cakes when they are slighly cold and it's also easier to apply butter cream to a cold cake
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Set a pan of water on heat and bring it to simmer.
- In another clean bowl, mix together the egg whites and sugar
- Set the bowl with egg whites and sugar on top of the pan with the simmering water. Make sure that the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl
- Beat the egg white and sugar mixture until the sugar is dissolved and mixture turn marshmallowy and feels slightly hot to touch. Take the mixture off the heat
- To see if the mixture is ready, take a bit of mixture between your finger tips and rub them together. When you don’t feel the sugar granules between your fingers, then take the bowl off the heat. Make sure that mixture doesn’t go above 65°C as the egg whites can cook and start to form solids
- Start beating the mixture until it is white and fluffy and cool to the touch. The mixture will form stiff peaks and will be shiny. This will take between 15-20 minutes but bit longer with an electric hand mixture
- Start adding butter, one cube at a time and keep beating it low speed. Make sure that butter is mixing well
- Initially the mixture will curdle and might even become soupy but contiue to beat until it’s smooth again
- Divide the butter cream into two bowls. Make sure that one bowl has slightly more butter cream than the oner one. Add about 15-20 drops of pink colour to the smaller bowls until you achieve the desired pink colour
- Add the butter cream into piping bags ready to piple
White Chocolate Shards
- Line a large rectangular with parchment paper
- Melt the chocolate in a microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring at each interval, until the chocolate is almost melted. If not using a microwave, add the chocolate to a heat-proof bowl. Set the bowl in a pan of water (make sure the water only comes half way up to the top of the bowl. Heat the water. Stir the chocolate until melted
- Remove from the oven and mix it well until the chocolate if fully melted. Pour the chocolate on the parchment paper (save couple of spoons of the chocolate to make coloured chocolate). Using a spatula spread the chocolate out evenly in a thin layer.
- Add 1-2 drops of pink colour to the the chocolate set aside. Using a small spoon, randomly drop dollop o pink coloured chocolate on the white chocolate layer. Using a skewer, spread the pink chocolate in a swirling pattern through the white chocolate
- Scatter freeze dried raspberries on top of the chocolate. Pick up the tray and gently tap it to make sure the raspberries sink into the chocolate
- Set aside to dry, atleas for over an hour. Once dry, can keep in the fridge until ready to serve the cake
- Just before serving, remove the chocolate from the fridge and using a sharp knife cut them into shards
Assemble
- Remove the cakes from freezer. Slice each cake into two even layers
- Set the first layer on the cake on a cake board. Pipe a dollop of white butter cream about once centimeter thick. Use a spatula to spread it evenly. Sprinkle freeze dried raspberries. Gently press 20 pieces of halved raspberries, cut side down
- Place the second layer of the cake on top and repeat the process above until all the cake layers are assembled
- Using a spatula cover the whole cake with a very thin layer of buttercream. This layer is called crumb coating to ensure that all the crumbs are contained
- Set the cake in the fridge for about half hour until it has cooled down
- Remove the cake from the fridge and set it on a turntable. Turning the turntable, pipe a strip of pink buttercream at the bottom of cake. Alternatively pipe pink and white stripes about 1 cm thick. Try to get the top stripe in pink colour
- Pipe pink buttercream on top of the cake and using a spatula smooth it over by gently pulling inwards from the outer edges of the cake
- Using a tall cake scraper, gently scrape the side of the cake while turning the cake. This will blend the white and pink lines together and form flat stripes. Fill in any gaps with extra butter cream.Do this several times until the sides of the cake are smooth. Remove excess cream of the scraper between each scrape.
- Once the sides are smooth, using a spatula gently pull excess buttercream on the sides towards the centre of the cake
- Decoratge the cake with chocolate shards by gently pressing them into buttercream at the top. Use raspberries at the back of the shards to keep them in place
- Enjoy!
Tried this recipe?Mention @Incredible.kitchen or tag #myincrediblekitchen!
