Neapolitan Cake

I've been sticking to lower fat/sugar bakes for the last couple of months as part of my new year (mostly) healthy eating regime but last weekend while back home at my parents' I was desperate to just go nuts and make a proper double decker sponge with lashings of scrummy frosting. I've wanted to try a tri-colour Neapolitan ice cream inspired cake, with layers of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, for a while so this was the perfect time to give it a go. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and think it looks really pretty and cheery!

The frosting I used in this recipe is just egg white beaten with icing sugar plus flavouring and food colouring and this makes for a lovely light, almost marshmallow-like texture which is less sickly than buttercream. However, a word of warning: it starts to shrink and evaporate after 24 hours or so so if you're making the cake in advance I'd recommend using buttercream icing instead as it will last much longer.

Side note: A lot of my previous cake recipes on here have listed the quantities in ounces but I've decided to start using metric only from now on in order to be consistent.

INGREDIENTS

For the cake:

• 225g self-rasing flour
• 225g caster/granulated sugar
• 225g butter/margarine
• 4 eggs
• 2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 50g chocolate chips (optional but very yummy)

For the icing/jam filling:

• 1 egg white
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tsp strawberry extract
• Few drops of red food colouring
• Handful coloured vermicelli
• 4 tbsp (approx.) strawberry jam

METHOD

For the cake:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C and line two round baking tins with parchment paper.
2. Whisk the butter/margarine and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until pale then whisk in the eggs.
3. Fold in the flour and vanilla extract until a batter of a soft dropping consistency has formed.
4. Separate half of the mixture into a second bowl and and fold in the cocoa powder and chocolate chips.
5. Pour the mixtures one each into the two cake tins.
6. Pop in the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes until a cocktail stick inserted into the sponge comes out clean.
7. When baked, place on a wire rack and leave to cool before turning the cakes out of the tins. At this stage the cakes can be frozen for decorating at a later date if you wish.

For the icing/filling:

1. Spread the strawberry jam onto the top of the cooled chocolate sponge and sandwich the vanilla sponge on top.
2. Separate the egg white into a clean bowl and whisk with the strawberry extract until stiff peaks form while adding the icing sugar a few teaspoons at a time.
3. Add the food colouring a couple of drops at a time and whisk again until you have your desired shade of pink.
4. Spread the icing over the top of the cake using a palette knife - tap roughly with the palette knife to achieve the fluffy effect in the photo - and then sprinkle with vermicelli as a colourful finishing touch.

Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream Cupcakes

Of all the recipes I've invented this is definitely one of my favourites; the results are not only delicious but just oh so pretty and pink :) And the swirly two-tone sponge looks fantastic! As soon as I discovered Morrisons raspberry ripple ice cream flavour squash I knew I had to find a way to combine it with a cupcake, and I'd been wanting to try out my mum's new duo piping bag (from Lakeland), so I managed to kill two birds with one stone here. I took some of them into work the other week and needless to say they didn't last long! I can imagine that kids would love them too.

Admittedly these cupcakes are a little 'synthetic' and if you don't have much of a sweet tooth they probably wouldn't be your cup of (non-sugary) tea but the tartness of the jam compliments the sweet icing perfectly...and hey, they're only little! Strawberry jam also works well if you don't have raspberry.

INGREDIENTS - makes approx. 12

For the cakes:

• 4 oz self-raising flour
• 4 oz caster sugar
• 4 oz margarine/butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp Morrisons raspberry ripple ice cream flavour squash (not diluted)
• Couple of drops red food colouring

For the filling/icing:

• 6 tsp (approx.) raspberry jam
• 10 oz icing sugar
• 5 oz butter (unsalted if preferred)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp Morrisons raspberry ripple ice cream flavour squash (not diluted)
• 1 tiny drop red food colouring
• A few rainbow coloured sprinkles, to decorate

METHOD

For the cakes:

1. Line a baking tray with 12 paper cake cases.
2. Whisk the margarine/butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until pale then whisk in the eggs.
3. Fold in the flour, baking powder, vanilla extract and raspberry ripple squash until a batter of soft dropping consistency has formed.
4. Add a drop or two of red food colouring (no more than that, use it sparingly!) and swirl through the mixture a few times using a skewer. Don't overdo this or the batter will simply turn pink and you won't get the lovely marble effect!
5. Drop the mixture into the paper cases using a teaspoon until they're each about two thirds full.
6. Pop in the oven and bake at 180 degrees C for about 12-15 minutes until a cocktail stick inserted into the sponge comes out clean.
7. When baked, place on a wire rack and leave to cool. At this stage the cakes can be frozen for decorating at a later date if you wish.

For the filling & icing:

1. When they have cooled, use a teaspoon or small sharp knife to carefully cut out a hole (about 2cm in diameter and 1.5cm in depth) in the top of each cupcake, being careful not to cut too deep into the sponge. Don't discard the bits you've cut out!
2. Drop about half a teaspoon of raspberry jam into each hole and gently push the sponge part that was cut out back into each one.
3. Divide the butter, vanilla extract and raspberry ripple squash equally between two separate bowls and stir/whisk while gradually adding half of the icing sugar to each batch until a fairly stiff, fluffy mixture has formed. Add a tiny splash of red food colouring to one bowl and stir to turn the icing a pale pink - I find the best way to do this is to dip the end of a cocktail stick into the bottle of food colouring and then push it into the icing mixture to ensure it doesn't turn too red.
4. Here, I used my mum's wonderful duo piping bag from Lakeland to top the cakes with swirly two-tone pink and white icing but I realise most people don't have one of these. It's possible to create a similar effect by adding alternating layers of the pink and white icing to a regular piping bag or, alternatively, you could simply spread the two lots of icing onto the cakes and randomly swirl together using a palette knife or teaspoon.
5. Scatter a few rainbow sprinkles onto the top of each cake for extra ice creamy prettiness.