Bake-a-long part 2

OK next I've got some really fun little cakes. There's two ways you can use this recipe. You can make three sheet cakes, (you'll need a shallow large tin like a swiss roll tin) or you can make a sandwich cake and put the different coloured batters together in round 8" tin.

Red, white and blue cakes

Ingredients:

150g butter
150g sugar
2 medium eggs
4 tablespoons milk
150g self raising flour
Blue food colouring
Red food colouring
200g white chocolate
Buttercream
Coconut and red edible glitter for decorating, (optional)

Method
Measure out the butter and sugar and mix them together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs and milk until the eggs are Incorporated fully to the mixture. Next measure out the flour and sieve that into the bowl. Gently stir it in and then once the flour is Incorporated beat the mixture until it's pale and light. Now if you're making one cake split the mixture up into three bowls then add the red colour to one bowl and the blue colour to another. Leave the last batch white. Grease and line your cake tin then spoon in the mixtures one tablespoonful at a time so the colours keep in separate clumps in your tin, don't mix it or smooth the top as this will marble the colours and you'll end up with purple cake, just tap the tin to make the mixture sit flat. Bake it for about 25 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 180c.
Now if you're making the layered cakes like I've made you'll need to make three separate sheet cakes so start with the white cake and place the batter into a greased shallow tin then bake for around 10-15 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 180c. Once the cake is cooked leave it to cool for around 10 minutes then turn it out of the tin.
Make another batch of mixture but this time colour it red, you'll need about 2 tablespoons of food colouring to get the red colour, it does intensify once it's baked. Cook the mixture in the same tin you've used for the white cake but remember to clean and re-grease the tins as you go. Cook it for the same time as the white cake. While that's cooking make another batch of mixture and colour this batch with the blue food colouring. Cook as before once your red cake is cooled and turned out.

When your cakes are finished you should have three different coloured thin cakes. Use a cookie cutter in a circle shape and cut out circles of cake. I found it easier to put the cake back in the tin and then cut the circles out. You could also use something else circular to cut around if you didn't have a cutter. Put the circles to one side to cool completely.

In the last part of the bake-a-long we'll be doing the fun decorating bit!


xx Leo