MARY BERRY'S CHOCOLATE CAKE RECIPE USES A 'SURPRISINGLY GOOD COMBINATION' OF FLAVOURS

Baking can be a relaxing and enjoyable experience when you have the right recipe, and there are few better rewards than a slice of homemade cake.

Mary Berry's chocolate sponge cake is made with a basic blend of ingredients and takes just 10 to 30 minutes to cook.

But it's not like most indulgent chocolatey bakes, as the recipe calls for white chocolate rather than milk or dark, plus a fragrant herb - cardamom.

Sharing the recipe from her cookbook 'Mary Berry's Easter Feast', the beloved British baker claimed: "Cardamom with white chocolate is a surprisingly good combination in a sponge cake."

The delicious layers of cardamom sponge are sandwiched between chocolate-flavoured buttercream and topped with a dusting of icing sugar.

White chocolate and cardamom cake recipe

Ingredients

  • 225g/8oz unsalted butter softened, plus extra for greasing
  • Four free-range eggs
  • 225g/8oz caster sugar
  • 225g/8oz self-raising flour
  • Two level tsp baking powder
  • 12 cardamom pods

For the icing

  • 100g/3½oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
  • 50g/1¾oz unsalted butter softened
  • 75g/2½oz cream cheese
  • 200g/7oz icing sugar
  • Half a tsp vanilla extract
  • Icing sugar and stencil, to decorate (optional)

Method

For this cake, you will need two 20cm/8in loose-bottomed sandwich tins, so start by greasing them and lining each with baking paper. Next, preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas4 then move onto the cake mixture.

Add the butter, eggs, sugar, flour and baking powder to a large bowl and beat together (using an electric hand whisk if you have one), until well combined.

Now bash the cardamom pods with a rolling pin to release the seeds, then transfer the seeds to a pestle and mortar and mash until fine. Mary warned: "Be sure to crush the cardamom seeds only, not the pods as these do not tenderize down".

Stir the crushed seeds into the cake batter, pour the mixture into the tins and bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until golden brown and springy.

Remove the tins from the oven and leave to cool for five minutes, then run a small palette or rounded butter knife around the edge of the tins. Carefully turn the cakes out onto a wire rack, peel off the paper and leave to cool completely.

To make the icing, gently melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of just simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Mary urged bakers to take care not to overheat the white chocolate, or it will not set.

Stir the liquid chocolate until runny, then set aside to cool and thicken a little. Meanwhile, whisk the butter and cream cheese together until fluffy and soft.

Add half the icing sugar to the bowl and whisk again, then add the vanilla and the remaining icing sugar and whisk once more.

Stir in the white chocolate until combined, then transfer the mixture to the fridge for about 20 minutes, or until thickened to a spreadable consistency.

Slice each cake in half horizontally to create four thin sponges. Sandwich them together with the icing and arrange on a cake stand to form four layers of cake and three layers of icing, leaving the top of the cake plain.

To finish the cake, sprinkle the top sponge with icing sugar, using a decorative dove stencil if you have one. Mary uses a dove in her recipe, but a star, heart or anything similar will look just as impressive.

2024-04-23T12:52:56Z dg43tfdfdgfd