It's Good To Be Back! Let's Celebrate With A Chocolate Blackberry Layer Cake

Well, after a much longer than anticipated hiatus after having little Jayden, I'm proud to say I'm back!!!  I'm not going to lie - caring for a new born baby was a lot more time consuming than I ever expected.  I went from reading baking blogs to reading skimming baby books, and I can probably count the number of times on one hand that I actually turned my computer on in the past 3 months - thank goodness for iPhones!  I haven't really had much spare time to bake, but I've started to ease back into it over the past few weeks and have a few Christmas treats I'm dying to make, and blog about.  But this post isn't about Christmas at all - in fact, it's  a wonderfully thoughtful guest post from the amazing Arthi who bakes the most amazing creations over on her blog Soul Curry.  As Arthi mentions below, we first met at a blogger potluck last year, and I was so taken with her and her husband and how genuinely nice they both were.  They drove down to London all the way from Manchester just for the potluck, and we soon discovered that the regional office where I sometimes worked was very near to her house.  She even offered to let me stay with them incase the impending snow storm that was forecasted to happen while I was scheduled to be there prevented my plane from returning back to London.  How nice is that?!?!  Anyways, a huge apology to Arthi for taking an inexcusably long time to get her wonderful guest post up that she so thoughtfully prepared for us all.  Like I said before, I've barely had a chance to turn on my computer on over the past few months that I haven't even been able to reply to the majority of the emails I've been sent, so sorry if you were one of those people I haven't replied to!  Now that we're in more of a predictable routine, I will do my best to go back and reply to you all!  Before turning it over to Arthi, here's a little picture of my time consuming munchkin!  

A few days back I got a DM on twitter from Andrea of Made With Pink and I was thrilled to hear that she had delivered a healthy baby boy. I quickly rushed to her site to see the pics of her new born. Pure Bliss! 

 

I met Andrea at the FBC Potluck last year and me & I absolutely loved her Nanaimo bars ( a rich confection from a town called Nanaimo, that's made up of Graham cracker , cocoa, coconut and nut crust, a chocolate topping & has a rich custard buttercream filling).

Thanks to twitter we managed to keep in touch, although I missed her at the Plate2Page & FBC this year. Andrea asked me to guest post for her and when asked about what I should be making, she said anything sweet…Now, that anything sweet cannot be made-with-pink (sorry Andrea), as she has a handsome boy and I decided I have to make-it-with-a-little-bit-of-blue (errr Lilac). With a bit of brain storming and checking what my friend’s little boys like, I decided it has to be chocolate..so I made this special Chocolate Cake with Blackberry Butter-cream for the very special Jayden.

Its a shame we cannot share this huge 5 layer cake with them in person! Congratulations to both of you… May the joy of parenting bring you loads of happiness, sleepless nights and caffine overdose…….and hopefully culminating in a new set of strong hands in the kitchen for some serious muscle power whisking!

Chocolate Blackberry Cake

For the cake I doubled this chocolate cake recipe and baked in 3 6inch tins.

For the Swiss butter-cream I doubled the recipe from Tartlette.

Ingredients:

200gms (7oz) sugar
4 large egg whites
330gms (1.5 cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature
150gms (1/3 lb) Fresh blackberries
1tsp Vanilla extract

Method:

Put the sugar and egg whites in a large heatproof bowl over a bain marie and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch & 150ºC (300ºF) on a candy thermometer. The sugar should be dissolved at this point. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat the meringue on medium speed until it cools and forms a thick shiny meringue, about 10 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment and add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, beating until smooth. Make sure you add the butter once the meringue is cool. Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, about 10 minutes. Add the fresh blackberries and whisk. You could add pureed fresh berries for a smoother buttercream.