Raspberry Ripple Cake

The weather is finally starting to warm up – so let’s get those Spring flavours started with this raspberry ripple cake!

I’ve taken inspiration from the classic ice cream flavour, raspberry ripple. If you know the ice cream, its rich vanilla ice cream swirled with raspberry – which is tart and partners perfectly with the vanilla ice cream.

From that, I have made this cake – which is monstrously tall. Eight layers of cake, four layers of raspberry jam and three layers of buttercream. The cake layers are thinner than usual layers, due to them being half of a standard layer – this is just to add more flavour in and cream dimension when layering cake.

For this cake, I’ve used my Italian meringue buttercream – which is less sweet and more stable than an American buttercream and is the perfect alternative to Swiss meringue buttercream.

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

 

Ingredients:

Cake:

375g butter, at room temperature.

375g granulated sugar.

6 eggs.

375g self raising flour.

1 tsp vanilla extract.

4 1/2 tsp milk.

Rapsberry jam

 

Italian Meringue But

250g granulated sugar.

62ml water.

70g egg yolks.

500g butter, at room temperature.

Vanilla extract.

Simple Syrup:

150g granulated sugar.

150ml water.

50-70g fresh raspberries

Filling and decoration:

Raspberry jam (homemade or store bought).

Fresh raspberries – roughly broken up.

Raspberry macarons.

 

Method:

Before you get started on the cake, you’ll want to do some prep work. I like to start by weighing up all of my ingredients, line my 4×6 inch cake tins, grab any equipment I need and preheat the oven to 180˚c/350˚f.

Start the recipe by placing the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat together until they are lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency – this usually takes around 7-10 minutes is the perfect but it all depends on the climate that you’re in.

Once you’ve achieved the right consistency, add in your eggs, one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. Once all of your eggs have been added, add in the vanilla extract and beat until fully incorporated.

Give the bowl a scraping down, this is just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in from earlier on.

Add in your dry ingredients and mix on a low speed to start with, working your way up to a medium-high speed, just until a clear batter has formed. You’re not looking to take it any further than that as otherwise you may overwork the gluten and make the cake have a tough texture.

Divide the cake batter between the 4 cake tins, I like to use digital scales to get a more accurate result but this is something that you eyeball, if you’re confident enough.

I then like to take dollops off raspberry jam and place them randomly on top, using a knife or something similar, swirl it around the batter, ensuring its not fully worked in.

Place the cake tins into your preheated oven and bake off for around 25 minutes or until a tester comes out clean when inserted into the centre.

While the cakes are baking in the oven, make your buttercream.

My super easy Italian meringue buttercream is easy, quick and rich but not as sweet. I have a recipe for this – which you can find here.

I like to make a raspberry simple syrup, which is simply water, sugar and raspberries into a pan, bring to a boil and allow to cool. Strain, so there isn’t lumps and its purely liquid. You can save this by placing in the fridge – it’ll keep for longer there.

Once you have your cakes baked, cooled, levelled and halved, the buttercream made and simple syrup is cool – you’re ready to finish the cake. Make sure y0our brush all of the cakes over with a generous amount of the simple syrup – this will help keep the cake moist.

To start the assembly, simple take your plate/board/stand and smear a small blog of buttercream on it – this will act as the glue that keeps this cake in place. Then place your first layer and press it down to secure it in place. Top this layer of cake with a thin layer of raspberry jam, then top with your second layer of cake and top that with a layer of buttercream. Repeat the alternative layers until you have sued up all of your cake. It may not look the best now but once sliced into, it will look much better  – trust the process.

Now coat the entire cake with a generous layer of buttercream, spread and level it as much as you may need. It may take a few attempts to get an end result your happy result with. once you’re happy, you can small dollops of raspberry jam and randomly smear it on the cake, leaving it to be quite thick. Take a cake scraper and smooth out the raspberry jam – you can then determine whether you need more raspberry jam added. Repeat this step with then top of the cake.

Place the remixing buttercream mixed with some of the jam into a piping bag fitted with piping tip of your choice. Pipe around the edges until you’re happy and top then top each of the pipings with a macaron (I have the perfect recipe, check it out here).

That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.