Series 6, Episode 1, Frosted Walnut Layer Cake
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. I’ve still been baking but hadn’t been sticking to these bake off challenges. The real reason is that I didn’t want to do the series 5 last bake (12 mini scones, 12 lemon tarts and 12 mini Victoria sponges) but have now decided that I can do what I want – I’ve already made big versions of all those so I just moved on to series 6. Here’s the recipe: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_frosted_walnut_15679
It starts off as a basic sponge recipe using the creaming method. I don’t have 3 tins that are the same so I had to use odd ones, they were all the same size though. Here they are ready to go in to the oven:
Next came the dreaded caramel. I’ve failed at making caramel before so was just assuming that I’d get some sugary crystallised walnuts. It turned out that my prediction was wrong and I managed to make beautiful golden caramel. Here’s a photo of it nearly finished, just before I took it off the heat:
Some of the sugar was burnt on the side of the pan but luckily the caramel itself wasn’t burnt. Here’s a photo of the nuts all caramelly:
Everything was going well so far. I was confident with what Mary called “boiled icing” because I’ve made a similar icing a few times before. For this recipe Mary Berry put all of the ingredients into a bowl over a pan of hot water and whisk until thick. It didn’t really say how hot the water should be or whether it should be boiling but I put it on the hob anyway. The icing thickened up as expected, but when I tasted it I noticed that it was grainy. I carried on for a bit longer until deciding I’d had enough and just coated the cake with it. I was quite frustrated that it was grainy so had a look online to see if there was any clue about what I’d done wrong. Most of the other recipes melted the sugar first before adding it to the egg whites. I checked the recipe that I’d used before from Nigella and saw that she’d used less sugar but had golden syrup too – I guess to reduce the risk of grainy icing. The cake still tasted good though, here’s a photo:
I forgot to take a photo of it sliced up so you’ll just have to use your imagination – imagine a perfect 3 layer cake with even buttercream between the layers.
I’d be happy to make this cake again, I just think I’d use a different recipe for the boiled icing (it’s just Italian meringue).
Lily
