Chocolate gateau with raspberry Bavarian cream

Last night Lu and I cooked dinner for eight friends and had a lovely night of eating, drinking and laughing til the small hours.  Squeezing all ten of us around our kitchen table was fun, but there was no problem getting the food to disappear fast, and within moments of putting this gateau on the table almost the whole thing had vanished, to the sound of lots of compliments!  I made this cake the day before to allow it to set overnight.  It's my first go at a 'Bavarian cream' - whipped cream with gelatin in (and in this case, a coulis of fresh raspberries and a good amount of Chambord black raspberry liqueur).  You place the cake inside a mould about an inch wider in diameter, and pour the moussey Bavarian cream around it to set.  The cloud-like texture of it was amazing, and works brilliantly with the combination of rich dark chocolate and sharp but sweet raspberries.  One of my all-time best cakes this, without a doubt.  (It's also, by the way, wheat-free: the cake is made only of three ingredients - eggs, sugar and cocoa powder.) 

Chocolate raspberry cake with Earl Grey gold dust

This is the final test for Ellie and Ruadhan’s wedding cake. I made it for a barbecue at our friend’s Emma and Geraint’s house – I had been waiting for a party to test it, as it is 12 inches in diameter and so I needed lots of willing testers!  8 eggs was the right amount to get a lovely tall cake which I can split in half.  For the wedding, I’ll double this and make two cakes, to slice to become either three or four layers (depending on how tall the tiered cake stand will allow it to be!) 

Originally, I tried an Earl Grey sugar syrup to glaze the cakes, but not everyone liked it, so for the final recipe, I’ve decided to use Chambord, an amazing black raspberry liqueur.  I’m not going to turn it into a syrup but use it neat, to keep the cake as moist as possible given that I’ll be making it a day or two before the wedding.

The idea of the Earl Grey dust was to make my own edible gold dust that tasted good rather than was just pretty, and it worked really well.  Despite deciding not to do an Earl Grey glaze, I still think that the Earl Grey taste of bergamot goes beautifully with dark chocolate, and everyone loved this, so it is staying in the final wedding cake!  I’ll definitely do this tea gold dust again for other cakes, but you could try all sorts of flavours – Camomile tea would be lovely I think, and work well with lemon cake.