As you may be aware I am just that little bit obsessed with the Great British Bake Off.  I had massive withdrawal symptoms when the third series finished last October so it was just brilliant when I heard that there was to be a Christmas Special and the Comic Relief specials.  Now I, along with thousands of others will have to wait until the summer for our fix!

The other day, though I did find out that John Waite who won series 3 is bringing out a book in April! Whoo, hoo! It is now 0n order from Amazon and I am really looking forward to it popping through my letterbox.

Last week my sub copy of Good Food Magazine arrived which is always a joy to have. This month actually features two of John’s bakes, including a rather sublime looking white chocolate and raspberry sandwich cake. The idea was that it could be baked for Mother’s Day but I couldn’t wait until then.  I just had to bake it NOW!

Last Monday when I was planning out the meals for the week I decided to bake the cake as our Sunday lunch pudding as all of us love raspberries and white chocolate.  I did find that it is an expensive cake to make for an everyday cake so would be ideal to make for a celebration instead. You need 300g white chocolate which can cost up to £6 depending on what brand you use. I always use a good make like Divine or Green and Blacks as it melts better than cheapo white chocolate.  I liked the fact that there wasn’t lots of sickly icing all over the top of the cake, it was simply dusted with caster sugar.

First of all I greased and lined my two 8″ sandwich tins while my oven was heating up and then I creamed sugar and butter together. In went four free range eggs and self raising flour. When everything was mixed together I folded in a punnet of raspberries. I had to take care with these though as the raspberries were beginning to leak juice and I didn’t want a pink cake!  After that I folded in 100g chopped white chocolate. I had misread the recipe and realised I was meant to melt the white chocolate separately but I decided that the chunks would work as well.

Into the oven went the cakes and they baked for about 20-25 minutes.  After cooling on a rack for a while I turned them out.

To sandwich the cakes together I had to make a white chocolate ganache. This was made by melting 200g white chocolate with about 25oml double cream. It then thickened up beautifully once it had melted. I spread this on top of one of the cakes, then the other one was placed on top. The finishing touches were added by sprinkling caster sugar on top.

When the cake was ready I placed it on my cake stand and left it in the kitchen ready for our Sunday lunch dessert after our roast pork and all the trimmings.  I was really pleased with the way the cake had turned out and I couldn’t wait to have some. Everyone said it looked gorgeous.  When I brought it to the table and served it out I saw my son had wolfed down his piece really quickly.  It was funny that if he had been given raspberries on their own he probably wouldn’t have touched them! I don’t blame him though, the cake was absolutely delicious and thankfully we were all off out for a long dog walk after lunch to work off some of the excesses!

Well, if John Waite’s book is full of yummy treats like this, we have a lot to look forward to!

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx