What better way to treat a loved one for Valentine’s Day than with a beautiful and indulgent home-made cake! Using three key Valentine ingredients, and some egg whites from The Happy Egg Co. eggs, we created this truly lovely and decadent cake. One of the best things about this recipe is that it incorporates some incredibly sumptuous flavours and ingredients without being too sweet or rich. Perhaps the only bad thing about this cake is that you’ll find you’ve eaten quite a few slices without realising! Imagine a gorgeously soft and fluffy champagne infused cake smothered with fruity yet creamy strawberry and white chocolate buttercream just waiting to be devoured… can’t wait to start baking? We thought so.
White Champagne Cake (makes three 9 inch diameter layers one inch deep)
453g Self-raising flour
453g Butter
453g Caster sugar
453g Egg whites from The Happy Egg Co. eggs
400ml Champagne or 12-18 drops of champagne essence
Pre-heat an oven to Gas Mark 3/325F/170C.
In a saucepan add the 400ml of champagne, set to boil then simmer until reduced to half the amount. Set aside to cool.
Cream your butter in a mixer then add the sugar. Add in the flour along with half of the happy eggs for around one minute. Once half of the happy eggs are combined add the remaining eggs along with the champagne or champagne essence. Mix for about 5 minutes.
Pour batter in the pan around 2cm in height and place on the top shelf. Bake for around 40-50 minutes. Repeat this step to create your second and third layer. When all layers are baked leave them to cool fully as you prepare your buttercream!
Strawberry and White Chocolate Buttercream
500g Diced/chopped butter at room temperature
300-400g Icing sugar (keep testing when adding to make sure it is the consistency and sweetness you like)
6-12 Drops of strawberry extract
150g Melted white chocolate
Pink gel paste food colour
Add half of the of butter into your mixer and cream. Then gradually add icing sugar and the remaining butter (cut into cubes) until you get a smooth, creamy texture. Add in the melted chocolate and then add the strawberry essence to taste with some pink gel paste food colour.
To assemble you need to stack your layers with your buttercream sandwiching them together; now you need to crumb coat your cake. A crumbcoat is a thin layer of buttercream or ganache that seals in the crumbs before being fully iced or covered. With a good angled spatula smoother some of the buttercream atop and around the sides of the stacked cake until covered. Chill in a refrigerator for 20-40 minutes. Once chilled remove and cover with the rest of your strawberries and white chocolate buttercream using a spatula. We covered ours with soft buttercream ruffles for a romantic look.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our year of various cake recipes utilising eggs from The Happy Egg Co. as we have and that we’ve inspired more people to try their hand a new skill… or several.
