Time to raise the bar a little bit and try to bake a truly impressive cake! Vanilla- latte cream cake will (hopefully) crown day 3 of the Christmas Bake-off! There is always more things that can go wrong when you start baking ‘multiple steps’ cake. Especially those with cream can be unforgiving. Not only the sponge must be moist, light and fluffy but the cream and/or buttercream should have perfectly smooth, velvety consistency! The pressure is on!

And… The first attempt of baking cake ended badly. Everything seemed to go quite well until I popped the tin with batter to the oven. Almost immediately cake rose around the hot tin edges, leaving the middle part looking like a valley. The shape wasn’t my concern, even the ugliest cake can be transformed into sweet beauty with a little  help of a knife and buttercream. But when something that was supposed to be a fluffy sponge comes out of the oven looking more like a lava cake… You know you have to start all over again!

2 cups of flower, 4 eggs and 25 minutes of whisking later the second batch was ready! This time I decided to, despite directions in the original recipe, lower the temperature a little bit so that cake could raise evenly. I am not going lie saying that my hands were a bit shaky when pulling the cake out of the oven. I was afraid that I would not have enough time for a third attempt if anything had gone wrong. At the end of the day Christmas Bake-Off it is not called ‘challenge’ for no reason!

Not without obstacles but you can see the final result in the pictures. Voila! My rusty looking Vanilla-Latte Cream Cake in all its splendour!

Original Recipe Vanilla-Latte Cream Cake 

Ingredients
For the cake:
butter- 200g
caster sugar- 200g
vanilla extract- 1tbsp
eggs- 4 units
self-raising flour- 200g
salt- a pinch
coffee- 2tbsp (granules dissolved in 2 tbsp of water)

For the buttercream:
butter- 250g
icing sugar- 400g
vanilla extract- 1 tbsp
coffee granules- 1 tbsp (dissolved in 1 tbsp of water)

Directions
For the cake:
1. Preheat your oven, 180ºC (no fan), 160ºC (fan).
2. In a medium bowl mix together butter, sugar and vanilla. The mixture should be light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs, one at the time, constantly mixing the batter.
4. Sift your flour and salt into the bowl along with strong coffee and mix gently until everything is smooth and well combined.
5. Transfer the batter into two tins trying to smooth out the top as best as you can.
6. Bake the cakes for about 25 minutes each, after 20 minutes you can check if tester comes out clean, if so, switch off the oven, take the cakes out and start cooling on the cooling rack.

For the buttercream:
1. Mix together the butter, vanilla and half of the icing sugar.
2. Add the remaining sugar and the strong coffee and beat vigorously until fully incorporated.
3. Once the cake is completely cool you can start assembling. Spread the cream on the top of one of the sponges and put the other one on the top. Spread a generous blob of cream on the top and sides of the sponge sandwich. You can decorate the cake however you with! (I used some chocolate shavings).

Last but not least, ENJOY!

Below Score Chart proves that looks is not everything.  Even though my little elf could not keep her hands off the cake, it didn’t get the highest notes.