Sweet and Sour Surprise Cake

Something a little bit sweet with some hidden sour :)

Sweet and Sour Surprise cake

Ingredients:

Cake:

You will need to make this recipe twice to get 4 sponge cakes*

225g Butter (at room temperature)

225g Castor sugar

225g Sasko Self-raising flour

4 Extra large eggs, at room temp (weighing 60g each)

1 tbsp Vanilla essence

400g Mixed sour sweets (for the centre)

Icing:

350g Butter (at room temp)

700g Icing sugar (sifted)

60-100ml Cream

1 tsp Vanilla essence

Food colouring of your choice

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180*C and grease and line 4, 20cm cake tins.

Put the butter into a bowl and beat for a about minute until softened, then add the castor sugar and beat for a further 3 minutes until light, pale and thick.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating between additions, until well combined.

Sift the flour and, using a spatula or a metal spoon, delicately fold the flour into the butter mixture until you have a smooth cake batter (being careful not to overmix).

Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean, and allow to cool for 5 minutes in the cake tins before removing and placing on a cooling rack.

Repeat this process to make the 2 other cakes.

(The cakes must cool completely before icing.)

For the icing:

Beat the butter for about a minute until softened, then add the sugar and beat until pale and thick.

Mix the essence, cream and colouring together then add to the icing and beat for a further minute or so, scraping the sides occasionally, until you have a soft, silky icing. (If the icing is too stiff, add a little more cream.)

Remove the baking paper from the bottoms of the cakes and, using a bowl with a diameter of about 10-12cm, cut the centres out of 2 of the cakes creating 2 ‘ring’ cakes.

Place one of the full cakes onto a plate/cake stand, top with a little icing and place a cake ring on top.

Ice around the whole and top with the second cake ring.

Ice around the whole again and fill the whole with the sour sweets.

Cover with the second full cake.

Use the remaining icing to cover the cakes.

*Tip 1: You can double the recipe and make it just once, but you will need a very large mixer to ensure that the butter, sugar and egg mixture is very light and pale – this will also take twice the time - if you cannot get this consistency then the cakes will not rise properly – you might also need to add a little milk to loosen the batter.

Tip 2: Make sure your baking powder is fresh, whilst you only add a small amount to your recipes, if it is stale your cakes won’t rise properly.

Tip 3: Only open the oven to check if the cakes are cooked through once the cooking time has elapsed – sponge cakes do turn golden brown quite quickly during baking and if you open the oven door to check too soon, the sudden drop in oven temperature will most likely cause the cakes to sink in the middle.