So yesterday was my monthly Clandestine Cake Club meeting, in which you are given a theme and then you bake a cake to bring. Our theme this month, as it's now officially Summer (yay!) was 'Ice Cream Flavours'. What a great theme as there are so many interesting possibilities, so I even surprised myself by going for Vanilla. This is no ordinary Vanilla cake though, a Chiffon sponge and the use of Tahitian Vanilla in the syrup and meringue buttercream make this cake light and heavenly to taste. I used Peggy Porschen's Vanilla Cloud Cake recipe from her book Love Layer Cake as a basis for my cake and changed the design to fit with the Ice Cream theme. This recipe is absolutely delicious, although it wasn't straight forward as I had to change the method by adding the milk before the flour, yes that's twice I made the sponge batter! I had a feeling it wasn't going to work but I had visions of being told off by Paul Hollywood for not following the recipe, Haha! I'm not saying that the recipe wouldn't work for others but if you ever make it and think there's not enough liquid to fold the flour into add the milk first, it worked for me. Its not a necessary ingredient but I do think it was made even more special by the use of the Tahitian vanilla. It's so good in buttercreams, if you can get your hands on some try it. I used a little Squires Kitchen food colouring in Soft Beige to the buttercream to enrich the colour and the sprinkles are currently in Waitrose.
I have to admit that my teenage daughter loves this cake so much that she did have a small slice with her breakfast this morning and has requested it as her next birthday cake. I have a feeling that I maybe making this, or versions of, a lot more than that though.....
