Edible art – The Wordrobe loves this delicate dip-dye bake
Inside is a rose flavoured cake that uses mostly egg white, giving the sponge a pale shade which lends itself well to being coloured.
Ingredients
For the cake:
• 125g unsalted butter
• 250g caster sugar
• 1 medium egg, lightly beaten
• 3 medium egg whites, lightly beaten
• 225g plain flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 180ml whole milk
• 1 teaspoon rose extract
• 375g unsalted butter
1 Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease the cake tins and line with baking parchment. Using a stand mixer or electric hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy.
2 Add the eggs to the mixture a little at a time, until they’re well incorporated.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into bowl. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until just combined.
3 Add half of the milk and the rose extract, continuing to beat, and then add the remaining flour and milk.
4 Divide the mixture evenly between the prepared cake tins. Bake in the oven for 45–50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean.
5 Allow the cakes to cool for 10 minutes in their tins, then turn them out on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
6 While the cakes are cooling, make the rose buttercream. Using a stand mixer or electric hand mixer, beat the butter for 3–4 minutes until pale and creamy.
7 Add the icing sugar and cream and continue to beat for another 2–3 minutes until smooth. Add the rose extract gradually to taste.
8 Level the cakes by cutting off the domed tops and split each layer in half so that you have 4 layers in total. Fix the bottom layer to the cake board or stand with a small amount of buttercream and spread with a generous amount of the buttercream.
9 Add the second layer and repeat, and repeat again with the third layer, finishing with the final cake layer. Cover the cake with a thin layer of buttercream and chill for 30 minutes or until firm.
10 Split the remaining buttercream into 3 bowls, leaving half of the buttercream white and colouring a quarter deep pink and a quarter pale pink. Spread the white buttercream over the top and halfway down the sides of the cake.
11 With a clean spatula, spread the deep pink buttercream around the bottom quarter of the cake. Spread the pale pink buttercream between the white and deep pink colours, clean your spatula and smooth the cake, removing excess buttercream as you go.
12 Decorate with the crystallised rose petals.
Recipe courtesy of April Carter, extracted from Decorated
