White chocolate & raspberry birthday cake

I made this cake for my friend Alex' 21st Birthday Party!

It took a few hours to make the white chocolate shell around the cake, but I think it was worth it - I hate to sound arrogant, but I think it's one of the prettiest cakes I've seen in a while!

The sponge is a good old Delia Smith all-in-one-sponge classic & the icing is a white chocolate version of my usual chocolate buttercream frosting from Joy of Baking.

Vanilla Sponge

175g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 large eggs

175g caster sugar

175g softened butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Take a very large mixing bowl. Measure the flour and baking powder into a sieve and sift into a bowl, holding the sieve quite high to give the flour a good airing as it goes down. Now all you do is simply add all the other sponge ingredients to the bowl and, provided the butter is really soft, you just go in with an electric hand whisk and whisk everything together until you have a smooth, well-combined mixture. This will take 1 minute but, if you don't have an electric hand whisk, you can use a wooden spoon with a bit more effort. 

What you now end up with is a mixture that drops easily off a spoon when you give it a tap on the side of the bowl. If it does seem a little too stiff, add 1-2 tablespoons of tap water and mix again.Now divide the mixture between the two tins, level it out and place on the centre shelf of the oven. It will take 30-35 minutes to cook – don't open the oven door until 30 minutes have elapsed. 

To test if they are cooked or not, touch the centre lightly with your little finger; if it leaves no impression and springs back, the sponge is cooked. 

Next, remove them from the oven then wait for about 5 minutes before turning them out on to a wire cooling rack. Carefully peel off the base papers, leave the sponges to get completely cold.

White chocolate buttercream icing

120g white chocolate 

(I grated mine as it takes less time to melt, which equal less chance of the chocolate becoming burnt & turning gritty.)

150g unsalted softened butter

160g sifted icing sugar

Beat the icing sugar & butter until pale and fluffy.

Meanwhile melt the chocolate gently over a pan of hot water.

Once the chocolate has melted beat into the butter & sugar mixture until smooth.

I doubled both the cake batter & icing recipe to make my cake.  

I had two layers of raspberry jam filling & one layer of white chocolate buttercream in my cake.  

I then covered the rest of the cake in the remaining frosting & left to cook in the fridge.

To make the chocolate shell, i melted about 300g of white chocolate & spread it onto a large piece of tin foil (which was long enough to fit around the edge of the cake, with a little overlap)

Once the chocolate had nearly set I wrapped it around the cake and left in a cool place to set.