Ruffled Raspberry Rose Lychee Cake

"You're engaged!!! Congratulations!"

That was when a dear friend came back from her holiday in Cuba with with the good news. We were so happy for her and excited at the same time. This was when she started planning for the ultimate party of her life with meticulous details. After the first months of initial planning, she came to me and asked whether I would bake a wedding cake for her! I was shocked, surprised and definitely honoured for being one of three people baking her cakes; one of which is her mum, and another, a baker friend. I, the amateur home dessert maker who drools over pretty sweet things on my free time is going to be making the first ever wedding cake!!

Some mini ruffled cakes. These are one of the few test cakes I have made prior to the big day.

So here goes, I have been thinking about what cake and how to decorate it for months and finally chose the ruffled cakes which did not seem too difficult (that's what I thought).. When the wedding was getting closer, I started making test cakes to make sure I get the flavour and decoration right. The first cake was almost a success but the the ruffles were far from perfect, the colour came out peachy brown and not very wedding pleasant.

Hylands House where the wedding was held (picture via Chelmsford.gov)

The wedding ceremony was held in this beautiful room with very ornate ceiling

During the 'Wedding Breakfast'

The boys having fun at the green space in front of the venue 

Here's the cake at the wedding!!

The proud me with the cake :)

Here, I'm going to show you how to make this beautiful wedding cake. The cake itself is pretty simple. The tricky part is the swiss meringue buttercream although it is actually simpler than it looks so don't let it stop you. Just go for it.

ROSE, LYCHEE & RASPBERRY CAKE

Rose Cake

Adapted from gimmesomeoven
Makes 2 x 8" round cake

Ingredients:

• 292g self raising flour, plus more for dusting
• 240ml milk, room temperature
• 4 medium eggs, room temperature
• 1 tsp almond extract
• ½ tsp rose extract
• ¾ tsp vanilla extract
• ¾ tsp salt
• 330g caster sugar
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 170g unsalted butter, softened

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 160C.  Line the bottom three 8 inch round cake pans with parchment paper and grease with butter.
2. Dust the insides of the pans lightly with some flour.
3. Whisk together milk, eggs and extracts in a medium bowl until blended. Set aside.
4. Mix the dry ingredients (self raising flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) in a bowl until combined.
5. With an electric mixer, add butter into the flour mixture and mix until mixture looks like moist crumbs.
6. Add milk mixture into the crumbs and beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of bowl midway through.
7. Divide batter evenly between three prepared cake pans. To be really precise, you can weigh each cake pan with batter to make sure they are even.
8. Use a rubber spatula to even out the batter on top of each cake pan.
9. Arrange te pans to be at least 3" away from oven walls and from each cake pan.
10. Bake for about 26-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
11. Once the cake is ready, remove cake and let cool on wire rack.
12. Brush lychee syrup on to top of each cake.

Rose Flavoured Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Adapted from Sweetapolita
Makes 10 cups of buttercream

• 10 large, egg whites (300g)
• 500g caster sugar
• 680g unsalted butter, cut into cubes and cool, but not cold
• 1 tbs vanilla extract
• 1 tsp rose extract
• pinch of salt
• red colouring (depending on how pink you like it) or any other colour

Methods:

• Please refer to Sweetapolita's very precise step by step method. Add colouring at the end.

To Assemble

• rose cake
• lychee syrup from canned lychee, to brush on cake
• 200g lychee fruit from can, drained and chopped
• raspberry jam
• Rose flavoured swiss meringue (recipe above)

Methods:

1. To assemble, spread the raspberry jam on top of a cake.
2. Spread a layer of the butter cream carefully on top of the raspberry jam and scatter the chopped lychees above it.
3. Stack the second cake on top of the first and repeat steps 1 and 2.
4. The top cake layer will be plain and without jam.
5. Once the three layers have been stacked up, spread a thin layer of buttercream over the top and sides to create a smooth surface.
6. Transfer remaining buttercream into a piping bag with a petal nozzle and decorate.
7. To make ruffles, please refer to the well explained video tutorial by Fiona Pearce.

Top view of the ruffles that looks like a giant flower. This was the most tricky part to get right.