Baking on a Friday afternoon has become a little bit of a tradition for me of late during isolation. It is something that I have come to look forward to because it fills me with childish excitement watching and waiting for the cake to rise and bake in the oven and taking great comfort from the sweet aroma that filters throughout the house. The cake at the end is wonderful too!
I used to love baking when I was a teenager, but sadly I lost my passion for it somewhere along the way, but never losing my enjoyment for eating cake. In isolation I have rekindled this love; there is no happier feeling than indulging on home-made cake. My mum and I both look forward to the weekends now.
So far, I have baked the classic childhood favourite, Swiss Roll and a delicious Lemon Drizzle Loaf. This week is the turn of my own childhood favourite – Angel Cake.
Angel Cake is the one cake that I have always loved; with the colourful layers being fascinating to 5 year old me. We would visit the supermarket at the weekend and I would always stop at the cake aisle and stare with wonder until my mum would tell me to pick a cake to put in the trolley. I always chose an Angel Layer Cake and I always insisted on the pink layer sitting proudly at the top. It tasted better that way of course!
I had never attempted to make an Angel Cake before and while it did prove to be a little challenging – I only have one loaf tin and it felt like a scientific feat trying to prepare my brownie tin for the other two layers – it was a great success and felt like a proper treat!
What will I need for the Angel Cake?
230g of Self-Raising Flour
1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
145g of Caster Sugar
145g of Butter
3 Eggs
1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
2 tablespoons of milk
Pink and Yellow food colouring (I am using Culpitt Colour Splash Gel Paste Colouring, you can purchase them here if you don’t already have food colouring in your cupboard)
For the Butter Cream filling:
55g of Butter
110g of Icing Sugar
A splash of Milk
How do I make the Angel Cake?
1. Firstly, preheat the oven to 160°c (for a fan assisted oven or 180°c or Gas Mark 4) and line your baking tin of choice with greaseproof paper.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar (allowing the butter to reach room temperature makes this step a lot simpler, but I always forget to take it out of the fridge).
3. Beat the eggs into a separate bowl with the vanilla extract and slowly combine with the butter/sugar mixture a little bit at a time.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and add the milk until you have a smooth cake batter.
5. Divide your batter evenly between three bowls (yes I used scales for this!) and add the pink food colouring to one, the yellow food colouring to another (until you reach your desired hue) and leave the final one plain.
6. Spread the batter into your baking tin and pop into the oven for around 20-25 minutes (I checked on mine after 20 minutes as our oven is unpredictable and it was ready to come out), or until golden and spongy.
7. When you’re happy with your sponges, transfer them to a wire cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before adding the butter cream filling.
8. Whilst your sponges are cooling mix together the butter, icing sugar and milk for the butter cream until light and fluffy (I will admit now that I cheated and used ready made butter cream. We had a tub in the cupboard that I wanted to save from wasting).
9. When your sponges have fully cooled, trim the edges (from all) and tops (from two) and sandwich them together with a generous helpings of butter cream.
10. For me, the final and most important step is to make a pot of tea, slice your cake and enjoy it, either alone or with the people that you are isolating with!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend and happy baking!
Jade x
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