My husband doesn’t really care much for birthdays.  To him they’re just another day on the calendar.  Until he met me, that is! He says he doesn’t like a fuss and big celebrations but I think you should mark the day in some way or another.

A few weeks ago we were talking about birthdays and my hubby said “Don’t bother making me a cake,”  But I bet if I didn’t serve him one up he would feel upset.  So I try a compromise, I make him a small cake which is big on the flavours he loves and not swamped in sugarpaste or fancy decorations.

So why a Mojito cake?  Both my husband and I love Mojitos especially since we first drank one in the Australian restaurant Reef n’ Beef in Copenhagen a few years back.  The mixture of white rum, lime and mint was just simply gorgeous.  By the way, the meal was lovely as well! Ever since then we have tried to make them at home, especially in the summer.  We also love drinking them on holiday.

So, I baked a simple Victoria Sponge recipe and added some white rum (sorry dear hubby I nicked the rest of your Bacardi to bake your birthday cake), lime juice and zest as well as some chopped mint to the basic mixture.  The icing was a lime flavoured buttercream and to decorate I used chopped pecans and hazelnuts round the edge of the cake along with lime slices for the top.

My hubby was pleased with his cake and enjoyed it even though he originally asked me not to make a cake.  Everyone enjoyed it and I was pleased with how the Mojito flavours all worked well together in the mixture.  He didn’t even bat an eyelid when I confessed to using up his Bacardi!

I got the idea of the Mojito cake from Lorraine Pascale’s first book “Baking Made Easy”  Her recipe uses a Genoise sponge, mine was an ordinary Victoria Sponge like mixture.  I used her decoration idea as well, although hers was just using pecan nuts. I didn’t have enough pecans so I added hazelnuts to mine as well.

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx