A VERY Big Birthday Cake with Summer Berries! British Sugar & Street Party Recipes (2024)

A VERY Big Birthday Cake with Summer Berries!

British Sugar & Street Party Recipes

As a food blogger, I am approached bynumerousPR companies wanting me to enter contests, developrecipesand endorsecertainbrands that they represent; I am also approachedregularlyby the brands themselves, and my criteria for accepting to work alongside them is simple: The products or services MUST fit in with my readership and enhance what I post on my blog; If theingredientsare British then I am MORE than happy to work with and promote the brand; and finally, there must be a good “two-way” working environmentbetweenme and the company or brand…….mutual respect andcommunicationis key and is the success to working well with good PR companies and brands. So, when I wasapproachedby Baking Mad recently, and was asked if I would like to receive some ingredients and make something from their Street PartyRecipesrange for a contest, and as soon as I knew that the brand that they were promoting was Silver Spoon, and that the product was BRITISH, I accepted the challenge!

Let me just talk a little more about the sugar products I received from Baking Mad and Silver Spoon, so you will understand why I was happy to work with them, as well as make a recipe and enter the baking contest to win a hamper of British Goodies, and why not!

“Silver Spoon sugars are made from sugar beet which is a large pale brown root crop, similar to parsnip which grows in the temperate climates of Europe and North America. The sugar beet that goes into Silver Spoon sugars travels a short distance to the factory (an average of only 28 miles) direct from the fields around Bury St Edmunds in East Anglia. Silver Spoon work with 1,200 local farmers to grown the beet, which is then made into their range of homegrown sugars for families all over the country.
Silver Spoon are committed to reducing energy use, emissions and waste at every stage. All raw materials in the factory are aimed to be transformed into sustainable products.”

TO get back to my entry for the Baking Contest! All the bloggers involved were sent the “ambient” ingredients in which to make theirrespectiverecipes; I was sent some Silver Spoon Caster Sugar, Silver Spoon Icing Sugar and some Allinson’s Plain Flour…..I added the butter, eggs, cream and fresh fruit (berries) myself – the eggs came from my hens and most of the fruit came from my garden………the recipe I chose was one that I knew I could make for a friend as a birthday cake (to feed ten people) – so my chosen recipe was the very challenging Genoise Sponge Cake with Berries.I say challenging, as a Genoise sponge needs lots of elbow grease to make it, at least ten minutes stirring and whisking over a Bain Marie! I have to say that I wasTHRILLEDwith the results, and the cake looked suitablycelebratory, asyoucan see by the photos.

The cake was a HUGE success, and I was then promptly asked to make ANOTHER cake, exactly the same cake and the same size, for this weekend, for another friend who is hosting a dinner party – of which I will be a guest! I have aVIDEOof the cutting of the cake, and it makes foramusing viewing, but I will share the video inanotherpost. MY choice of fruit and berries was: Redcurrants(home-grown), Blueberries, Strawberries (about four or five home-grown), Blackcurrants (home-grown) and Kiwi Fruit,whichwere grownlocally. The Genoise sponge was as light as feather and the cream was my own concoction of Chantilly cream, as I added icing sugar AND a little tot of brandy to the mix! The finishing touch was a GENEROUS dusting of icing sugar and the cake was HUGE, but still quite elegant!

The recipe for the cake in on the Baking Mad site here:Genoise Sponge Cake with Berries and the recipe was featured in the first series of Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard, so no wonder the cake is AMAZING and so VERY creative! I think I decorated the cake in the “Eric Lanlard Manner” – here is a small snapshot of his cake, taken from the site:

Here’s what I changed from theoriginalrecipe when making my cake:

• I used 6 eggs and cut back the rest of the ingredients to the same ratio (the original recipe uses 8 eggs) so the flour and sugar weights were 200grespectively. I then used 40g butter instead of 50g.
• I cut in my smaller cakes into TWO and not THREE as suggested in Eric’ s recipe.
• I made Chantilly cream instead of using whipped cream; and also added a small tot of Frenchbrandyto the cream.
• I used all the same berries, but also added kiwi fruit for colour and contrast.
• Everything else was exactly the same as the original recipe, in particular, the method of making Genoise sponge.

I HIGHLYrecommendmakingthiscake for aspecialoccasionor for a summer party, and I am now formally entering it in to the Baking Mad British Baking Challenge! Watch out for my other cake post and the video! Have a GREAT Midweek, and see you later with more Giveaways and some photos for a SPECIAL blog challenge! Karen

As this is a FUN cake ~ I am adding this recipe to:

Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday link party #23

(Hosted by KitchenFunwith my 3 Sons)