Hello with hearts and flowers.

This is a post I wrote for the lovely Melanie at  Melanie's Food Adventures so thought I'd leave it here too. She asked me for a wee bit of background on Bad Girl and a Valentines recipe so here it is! 


I still can't believe I bake cakes for a living! I get to bake my cakes; recipes I've written, tweaked and tested; flavours I've come up with in a style that I'm now, finally happy with. I get to do all this and people pay me. I still can't believe my luck!

Bad Girl Bakery is almost a year old, though I've been baking cakes for a living for much longer than that.  I gave up a fifteen year career in marketing and communications because I was tired of being stressed.  I won't go into the wrangling and soul searching but suffice to say it all worked out.  I owe my cake career to my first cake boss Fiona Pratt who runs Bibi's Bakery (check it out, their cakes are lovely! www.bibisbakery.co.uk). She took a big risk with me (an untrained but enthusiastic baker) by asking me to help set up and run her first bakery and I'll always be grateful.  I went on to oversee recipe development for her chain of bakeries before moving to the Highlands. The standards I hold myself to are partly due to all the things I learned from her. 

Bad Girl Bakery is, for me about *good* cake; cake that tastes of more than sugar; cake that looks and tastes like an indulgent treat and makes you glad you ate it.  I'm not a fan of fondant creations that are all about style and not really about cake or flavour  though I have huge respect for those who do it, it really is an art! 

With Valentine's Day coming up I thought I'd share for you one of my favourite recipes. It's something a bit different from all the chocolate at this time of year. It is indulgent, light and tart with lime and raspberries with a nod to pink, fluffy heart-ness (is that even a word?!) but with a focus on full on flavour. And what's more though it looks impressive it is actually a doddle to make!

I hope you and your valentine enjoy it. 

Raspberry, Lime and Rose layer cake. 

For the cake

300g stork (I always use stork, I think it gives a much softer, lighter cake)

300g caster sugar

5 eggs

300g self raising flour

1tsp baking powder 

Grated zest of two limes and juice of one

Handful of raspberries.

Filling 

Good raspberry jam 

Handful fresh raspberries 

Frosting 

500g very soft unsalted butter

750g icing sugar

1/2 teaspoon rose water (taste and add more if you need it, but go easy as a couple of drops too many and it will taste like soap!) 

(Pink colouring or some homemade raspberry purée optional)

(This quantity is for a filled, fully iced cake. Half it if you'd rather just fill it and not cover the sides) 

Decoration (all optional!)

Fresh raspberries

Chopped Turkish delight

Crystallised rose petals 

Pre heat the over to 180 conventional /160 fan/gas 4

Grease and line three 20cm round sandwich tins

Beat the butter, sugar and zest until pale and creamy and then add eggs slowly, one at a time. Don't panic if it starts to curdle, just add a couple of teaspoons of the flour and mix.  Add baking powder to the remaining flour and fold it in to the mix. Finally, fold in the lime juice.  Divide this mixture between the tins and dot each with a few raspberries. You want to see whole raspberries when you cut into it.

Bake for 25 mins or so, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Meanwhile  make the buttercream by adding all the ingredients to a stand mixer (with the splatter guard on or it will get messy!) and beat till fluffy. Please note, this all in one method only works if your butter is super soft! 

When the cakes are cool, put one layer on your serving plate and spread a layer of buttercream then top that with some jam then dot a few raspberries on that and repeat with the next layer then top with the final cake and the last of the icing (if you are going for a fully iced cake you will have enough icing to do the sides too!)

Decorate the top anyway you fancy, for a simple look you could just do an outline of a heart in raspberries. 

Enjoy!