A white chocolate and raspberry layer cake
Original recipes from donna hay, Food52 and Live Well Bake Often
Like banana and caramel or lemon and poppyseeds, white chocolate and raspberry is a tried and true recipe for success. Whether in muffins, blondies or cookies, the classic combination achieves a balanced sweetness by offsetting the white chocolate’s decadence with raspberry’s distinct tartness.
So, when it came time to bake a birthday cake for my white chocolate loving work neighbour, adding raspberry into the mix was an absolute no-brainer.
Muffin mixtures are traditionally less sweet than their cake counterparts, hence being the more socially acceptable breakfast option. With this in mind, I used donna hay’s raspberry and white chocolate muffin recipe in lieu of the flavour’s traditional mud-cake base allowed wiggle room for heavy, sugar-laden fillings, frosting and toppings.
The muffin batter’s modest ingredient list – featuring sour cream and lemon rind – provided a relatively neutral base to be speckled with chunks of my favourite white chocolate, Milkybar, and generous handfuls of raspberries.
Looking to incorporate both a white chocolate and a raspberry filling, I opted for a tri-level layer cake sandwiched with white chocolate ganache and raspberry conserve respectively.
For the raspberry filling, I used Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve for its thick consistency and flecks of raspberry seeds but you could use any store-bought raspberry jam or even make your own.
Conversely, I decided on a homemade white chocolate ganache, cranking up the sweetness with Food52’s decadent blend of white chocolate, cream and unsalted butter.
Top tip: reserve leftover ganache and serve on the side for any OTT sweet tooths.
Where I would usually offset a cake’s sweetness with a cream cheese or sour cream based frosting, the muffin base made way for a sweet buttercream exterior.
Using Live Well Bake Often’s raspberry buttercream recipe, I whipped in leftover raspberry conserve to give the frosting a pretty pick hue and subtle tartness, rounding out Amercian buttercream’s conventionally one-dimensional sweetness.
Finally, I topped the layer cake with a ring of finely chopped Milkybar and roughly crumbled freeze-dried raspberries to bring the theme home.
Ingredients
Raspberry and white chocolate muffin:
600 g plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
330 g caster sugar
480 g sour cream
4 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp lemon rind, finely grated
160 ml vegetable oil
450 g frozen raspberries
350 g Milky Bar white chocolate, roughly chopped
White chocolate ganache:
285 g Milky Bar white chocolate, finely chopped
160 ml thickened cream
21 g unsalted butter, softened and cut into three pieces
Raspberry buttercream frosting:
225 g unsalted butter, softened
3 ½ cup icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp thickened cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve
pinch of salt
Toppings and Fillings:
¾ cup Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve
50 g Milky Bar white chocolate, finely chopped
½ cup freeze-dried raspberries
Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line the bottom of three 22cm baking pans.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add caster sugar and whisk to combine.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream, eggs, lemon rind and oil until smooth.
Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Gently fold in the raspberries and white chocolate.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and smooth with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the pans.
Meanwhile, to make white chocolate ganache, put finely chopped white chocolate into a medium heat proof bowl.
Bring the cream to a boil and pour over white chocolate. Allow to sit for 30 seconds before gently stirring the chocolate and cream together in small circles, beginning in the centre of the bowl and working outwards, until smooth.
Once the ganache is smooth, add the butter one piece at a time and stir after each addition until incorporated.
Leave the ganache to thicken, stirring occasionally.
To make raspberry buttercream frosting, beat the butter until smooth in the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
Mix in the icing sugar, cream and vanilla extract on low speed then beat until well combined.
Add the raspberry conserve and salt, then beat until light and fluffy.
To assemble, level all of the muffin layers, dollop a spoonful of raspberry buttercream onto a cake board and set one of the levelled cake layers on top.
Spread a thin layer of buttercream over the top of the cake and pipe a ring or two around the perimeter of the layer to create a border. Spread a thick layer of raspberry conserve inside the ring of frosting and top with the second muffin layer.
Spread a thin layer of buttercream over the top of the cake and pipe a ring or two around the perimeter to create another border. Spread a thick layer of white chocolate ganache inside the ring of frosting and top with the final muffin layer.
Coat the entire cake with buttercream and smooth with an offset spatula.
To decorate, arrange the freeze-dried raspberries and finely chopped white chocolate on top of the cake.