It has come to the end of our fun series following the Bake Off and well done Frances for winning it all! I wanted Frances to win as her cakes were always a marvel to look at. I will remain permanently mesmerised by her ability to make cakes with hidden carrots or vegetable patches from sugar is wonderfully ironic.

The aim of this series was to show you that that you can still have lots of fun baking and creating lovely food without the refined sugars or flours. That you have still have you cake and eat it if you are gluten free or grain free or if you are trying to eat a more naturally healthy lifestyle.

We have made breads, cinnamon buns, canapes, trifles, chocolate cakes, pumpkin bread, roly poly’s, shortbread and custard cups! That is a lot of cake!

So today to celebrate  I attempted a 3 tiered  ‘showstopping cake’ to mirror their own show stoppers but I have made mine small due to the fact if I made cakes their size I would either put on a ton of weight eating it all or it would go stale in our 2 person house. It is a vanilla sponge with raspberry jam and chocolate icing, decorated with some cheeky (un) natural but fun edible glitter petals.

(the glitter is definitely not natural – but it is so much fun is it not? I just wouldn’t eat the petals) 

Vanilla + Raspberry Sponge with Chocolate Icing

Kezia Hall

A truly showstopping real food grain free cake with 3 tiers, chocolate icing and a delicious gluten free sponge.

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Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Servings 16

Ingredients

  

• THE SPONGE
• 700 g ground almonds
• 6 eggs
• 2 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 200 g Honey
• 150 g Organic Butter
• Pinch Salt
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
• ICING
• 200 ml Melted Coconut Oil
• 125 g Organic Butter
• 5 tbsp Honey raw
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 5 tbsp Cocoa powder
• RASPBERRY JAM
• 600 g Raspberries
• 3 tbsp Honey
• DECORATIONS optional
• Fresh Raspberries
• 1 Raw Beetroot
• Edible glitter

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 170c.
• Grease and Line 3 different tins or one big one if you are happy to chop the cake up once cooked to create the different sized tiers.
• Mix all the sponge dry ingredients together. Then blend all the wet ingredients (including butter) until smooth.
• Mix the two together well.
• Pour into the tins and put in oven until cooked - approx 40minutes.
• Meanwhile put the raspberries and honey in a pan and start to simmer. Simmer for around 15-20 minutes or until setting point (the jam will become firm and form a skin when placed on a cold plate), once at setting point remove from heat.
• Allw the cake and jam to cool.
• To make the icing melt all the ingredients together in a glass bowl over hot water. Then place in the freezer for about 10 minute , checking and stirring regularly, till it thickens and forms a thicker spreadable icing.
• Then remove from freezer and whisk until thick.
• Slice the sponge cakes in half and apply the jam generously.
• Stack the cakes on top of each other and then apply the icing using a spatula or knife.
• For beetroot petal thinly slice raw beetroot and place in oven for an hour at 100c until crisp and then dust with edible glitter.
• Decorate as you wish and enjoy fresh.

Notes

To make the icing shinier and smoother place a knife in boiling water and use it to smooth the top of the icing to get a good finish.
If you forget about the icing and it freezes - don't panic just melt again over some boiling water.
Blackberry, strawberry and any other sort of jam would taste great in this cake!