Chocolate & Raspberry Layer Cake

Learn how to make a show stopping Raspberry Cake – Chocolate cake sponge, with raspberry flavour and delicious fluffy raspberry buttercream icing, topped with chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries. The perfect birthday or celebration cake!

This post is an ad sponsored by Waitrose. Thanks as always for supporting the blog.

How can I possibly have left it months and months without making a layer cake?

When I used to make wedding cakes as my job, these were still the cakes that I loved to come back to. The cakes I’d make for fun. Because.. How can someone’s eyes not light up when they see a tower of majestic cake like this presented at a party or gathering?!

The secret..? I make them super simple. Sshhh. Easy peasy sponge, quick and easy icing.

There you have it. A tower of Chocolate Raspberry Cake just waiting to be proudly presented. (Of course, I also think it would make a perfect birthday cake or celebration cake.)

One of the secrets in my cooks’ toolbox is always Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients range.

They are super useful, or new and interesting products, to really take your baking or cooking up a notch.

They’ve just expanded the range and asked me if I’d like to try out some of the products and come up with a recipe.

I opted to try their two new raspberry products; Raspberry Natural Flavour and Raspberry Dust.

Making fresh fruit cakes can be tricky as it’s hard to get the fruit flavour without having a soggy cake or icing. These genius little products are the first time I’ve managed to do so. I was really impressed by both of them. I especially loved the pretty pink colour that the dust gave the raspberry cake icing.

You can find them in your local Waitrose store now.

HOW DO YOU MAKE A RASPBERRY LAYER CAKE?

This layer cake is surprisingly simple to make. A basic chocolate sponge cake flavoured with the Waitrose raspberry flavouring, and filled with fresh raspberries and a raspberry buttercream.

The decoration is the more time consuming part but to make this cake into a real show stopper I have decorated it with more buttercream, a dark chocolate ganache drip icing and fresh raspberries.

A delicious combination of rich chocolatey goodness and the crisp tart sweetness of raspberries!

(If you love a layer cake as much as I do have a look at my Chocolate Orange and Caramel Rocky Road layer cake recipes.)

How do you build a layer cake?

This raspberry layer cake has three layers of raspberry flavoured chocolate sponge, sandwiched together using raspberry flavoured butter cream and fresh raspberries.

Spread about around a sixth of the buttercream mixture on the top of two of your raspberry layer cakes, spread this with a palette knife and then top with some chopped fresh raspberries. (This is only a guide, you simply need enough to sandwich the cakes together.)

Then coat the whole cake in icing to decorate. (More tips on this below.)

How do you crumb coat a cake?

A crumb coat is the base coat of icing on your cake. It is also referred to as dirty icing your cake. It’s a thin coat of icing to trap in all of the crumbs, so you don’t see them on the outer layer.

Firstly spread your buttercream icing around all the sides and the top of the Raspberry Cake then smooth with a cake scraper.

It doesn’t matter if you can still see come cake through the icing, the purpose of the crumb coat is to seal the crumbs so they are not in the final layer of icing.

Keep scraping and smoothing until you have a very firm first crumb coating, which is as smooth as possible.

Once you have completed your crumb coat place the cake into the fridge for one hour or the freezer for twenty minutes.

(Yes, I label my freezer drawers – don’t judge – haha!)

How do you smooth buttercream icing on a raspberry layer cake?

Once you have completed your crumb coat and removed the Raspberry Cake from the freezer, you add your final layer of buttercream.

Smooth a thick later of buttercream icing over the top and sides of the Raspberry Cake.

To get a smooth finish on your cakes, there are two tools that are SO useful and really good value for money, they are an Angled Palette Knife and a Cake Scraper. They are quite cheap and really worth the investment.

How do you make a chocolate ganache?

Using a chocolate ganache makes your cakes look super luxe, and so people think its really difficult but its actually quite simple once you know how!

You make a chocolate ganache by heating your cream until it is just about to bubble.

You then remove it from the heat and stir in the chocolate until it is melted. The ganache needs to be liquid enough to drip down the cake, but not too runny so it pours to the bottom of the cake sides. It needs to hold it’s shape. Test to see if its the correct consistency by dripping it from a spoon into the pan.

How do you decorate a Raspberry Cake?

Once you have finished the final buttercream layer put your cake back into the fridge for an hour, or if you are time poor the freezer for twenty minutes. You want the cake to be cold, but not frozen.

You can see in the video I have used a piping bag to add the chocolate ganache. Disposable piping bags are a must buy if you’re planning on some cake decorating, they are so easy to use.

Pipe your ganache around the edges of the cake first to give that amazing drip effect. Then spread it over the top of the cake to provide a layer to hold your fresh raspberries. You’ll find that it starts to set quickly as the cake is cold.

Completely cover the top of the cake with fresh raspberries.

TIPS FOR MAKING THE RASPBERRY CAKE RECIPE:

• As always, don’t trim and ice the cakes until they are completely cold.
• Don’t put too much buttercream inside the layers, simply enough to sandwich them together. Too much will make the cake unstable.

• I’ve used the Raspberry Flavouring for the sponge cake, and the Waitrose amazing new Raspberry Dust for the icing. I really recommend them.
• To check the chocolate ganache is the correct consistency pipe the back of your cake first!

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do. I’d love to know how you got on and what you thought of it if you make this Raspberry Cake recipe. Please rate the recipe and leave me a comment below if you do.

Also, if you fancy showing me a photo by tagging me on Instagram (@tamingtwins) I LOVE to see your creations.

How to make the Chocolate Raspberry Cake:

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