The last day of September is a double Birthday Day in my family. So I was looking for a cake that would be simple, fast and that wouldn’t require a lot of time in the kitchen.

My Facebook friend Dor from La Difference Catering offered me to cook a Classic Victoria Sandwich, so I improvised and changed couple ingredients, as well as added couple of new.

This is how the ready cake looks like. It’s a shame I didn’t get a chance to picture it when cut.It looks amazing inside too, but it vanished too fast.

Preparation time: 30 minutes (Total with cream and decoration)

Cooking Time: 25 minutes

Total time needed: 55 minutes to 1 hour. (It’s better that the cake stand in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours, but it’s not critical)

For the batter:

1 cup of sifted flour

1 cup of sugar

4 eggs

2 teaspoons of lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla sugar

1 teaspoon of baking powder

To decorate:

Coconut shred (optional)

1/2 cup raspberries

1/2 cup strawberries

(Or you may use kiwis and bananas)

Batter preparation:

Mix sugar with eggs gradually, then add lemon zest, vanilla sugar and baking powder; after that start gradually add sifted flour.

Preheat the oven to 350 F; preheat a tin, where you will pour the batter.

Grease the tin with butter or margarine, pour the batter in it and bake for 20-25 minutes until the toothpick comes out of the cake clean.

While the cake is baking let’s cook the cream.

Clotted Cream recipe:

1 cup of milk

3 tablespoons of sugar

3 tablespoons of flour

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla sugar

1/3 cup of condensed milk

Step 1. Divide the milk into 2 halves. Mix 1/2 cup of milk with eggs, flour and vanilla sugar. Set aside.

Step2. Mix 1/2 cup of milk with sugar. Put on medium heat, stir constantly until starts to boil. Por the 2nd part of cream (with eggs and flour in) and stir constantly, until it starts to boil again.

Step 3, Take the cream off the gas and add the condensed milk after it cools off a little.

Your cream is ready.

Decorating:

When the sponge cake is baked and cooled off a little take it out of the tin and cut the sponge into two parts lengthwise. Now when you have two sponges choose one which will be the best for the “foundation” and cover it with your clotted cream.

Take the raspberries and put it on the first layer of your cake. I put one or two circles (one inside another) on the first layer. Put the second sponge on top of first, press a little, cover the first layer with cream and decorate with coconut shred. Put the berries on top of the cake: raspberries and strawberries will be good or bananas and kiwis will be nice as well.

Put the cake in the refrigerator for 1-3 hours (optional).

The cake tastes better when cooled off.

Enjoy!

My cake is a combination of recipes, ideas and vision of a great chocolate cake. (to my mind)

I love that this cake is moist inside, combines sweetness and bitterness of dark chocolate and I love that it’s easy to cook.

1/2 cup of chocolate chips

½ cup of instant espresso

1 ¼  stick of butter

1 cup of white sugar

1 cup of brown sugar

2 ¾ all-purpose flour (sifted)

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

4 eggs

Step 1. Set a pot ¾ full of water. Put a metal bowl on top of it and as the water starts to boil in a pot add to your bowl the butter, cut in slices. As the butter is starting to melt, add the chocolate chips and then, as the chocolate chips are starting to melt, add the instant espresso to the bowl. Stir the mixture occasionally and don’t let it burn. Turn the gas to a minimum and let the mixture just be there for 4-5 minutes.

Step 2.In a separate bowl mix:  flour (sifted), sugar, baking powder, baking soda (vanilla extract if it’s dry, if not you’ll add it later when we mix chocolate and flour) .

Step  3. Turn the gas off, take the bowl with chocolate-espresso-butter mixture and mix it with your flour mixture.

Step 4. When the chocolate and flour mixtures are very well mixed and cooled off a little bit, beat in 4 eggs, one by one. You have to stir the batter fast because the egg whites may  get cooked (the mixture may still be warm because of the heated chocolate).

Preheat the oven at 375 F, put same size three baking dishes (or two if you don’t have three) in the oven for 2 minutes just before pouring the batter in it. ( I used two dishes)

Take the dishes out of the oven carefully, grease them with butter, pour the batter evenly in all three (two) dishes and bake for 35 minutes (or until cooked). Test with a toothpick, it should be inserted into the center of the cake and come out clean. Allow to cool.

Crème:

For the crème I used vanilla pudding. But before covering the cake with it, I added the secret ingredient to my cake (take the kids off the screen). I added Malibu rum to it , just sprinkled  each layer of the cake with 2-3 tablespoons,(ok 3-4 tablespoons:-) of rum. Then I covered each layer with vanilla pudding and decorated the top of the cake with coconut shred.

Let the cake stand for a night, although mine didn’t get a chance to wait that long, we tested it in 15 minutes after it was done…

Enjoy!

And, omit the Malibu rum step if you are cooking it for kids