CCC No 7 - Get Fruity - Blackberry, lavender rose and white chocolate cake

Our latest Clandestine Cake club was held at the newly opened Da Vinci Italian Wine Bar and restuarant in Leyland and the theme was "Get Fruity".

This was my first meeting as an organiser and given that I had  a friends wedding the day before the meet, I had to get organised and make sure I baked ahead. The base sponge was baked a couple of days before and stored in a cool place. My bake for the Get Fruity theme uses homegrown blackberries from the garden and as I wanted a cake that was understated and highlighted the subtle flavours of summer, I choose a Blackberry and White chocolate cake. This cake features, rose and lavendar as flavourings in the compote and ganache, to give a twist to the ordinary.

Once again our membership excelled themselves and really embraced the theme of the event. Strawberry, raspberry, lemon, orange, blackberries, apples and cherries were just some of the fruits featured in the bakes. We ere also lucky that Crossmoor Honey brought along a selection of honey's for our members and guests to sample and purchase ( this was on request of the membership)

The meeting was busy and we welcomed new bakers and new guests. Discussions included our cake for Preston Cake City and the forthcoming Leyland Festival Bake off ! We even had a quick chat by the organiser to drum up a few more entries for the Leyland Cake competition from our membership.

Back to my cake, a relative easy bake due to the time restrictions I had.

Ingredients

150g Quality baking margarine

200g white chocolate

200ml skimmed milk

250g self raising flour - sifted

1 tsp baking powder

250g caster sugar

3 large eggs (free range please)

1tsp vanilla paste

300g blackberries, I used homegrown frozen from last season, defrosted

1 tbsp lemon juice

150g granulated sugar

1 tbsp of dried lavender flowers ( in a muslin bag )

200g white chocolate 

200ml double cream

2tsp rosewater

You will also need 2 greased and based lined sandwich tins, approx 20cm across, I use 1 cal oil spray to grease my tins , it makes a doddle.

Method

Preheat your oven to 180c, slightly less if you have a fan oven 160c, watch the cake for over colouring as the white chocolate can make it brown quickly.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water and add your vanilla paste and milk to it once melted.Leave to cool.

Mix the flour, margarine, sugar and eggs together, then add the chocolate mixture, mix until you have a smooth mixture and then pour into the two tins.

Bake for approx 30 - 35 mins until cooked through when tested with a skewer, leave to cool in the tin, then remove from tin, remove the baking paper and allow to cool fully on a wire tray.

Make your compote by cooking the blackberries, granulated sugar until the berries are softened and the juices running, I made this the day before and infused the lavendar into the compote using a small muslin bag and left it in the fridge overnight. Drain the excess moisture from the compote before using.

To make the ganache I brought the cream and rosewater to the boil before pouring over the broken up chocolate and stirring until melted. This was then allowed to cool in the fridge and whisked to thicken.

To assemble place your base cake on your serving plate and fill with a little of the ganache and the drained blackberry compote, then place the top layer cake on top. Spread with the remaining ganache, decorate to your taste.

I used 

• Dried lavender flowers (I got mine from Steenbergs)
• Rose flower and petals from the garden

I also had a go at an Audioboo too for the event

listen to ‘clandestine cake :-) ’ on Audioboo