A big thank you from me goes to the lovely Sam at Sams Kitchen for the inspiration for this cake, when I was at a complete loss for what to make for my Dad’s 60th birthday Sam came to the rescue.  You can visit Sam’s blog here and catch her on facebook too – you’ll love her baking, she won’t disappoint!

Now Dad doesn’t eat cake but we all do!  I can honestly say I have never ever seen a cake of mine disappear so quickly!  I was dishing up, misjudged numbers and there was none left for me.  Fortunately Mr Clemens stepped up and shared his – there’d have been trouble if not 😉

 So if you’re looking for a cake to impress that doesn’t need a ton of decorating then this Vanilla Layer Celebration cake is just the recipe you need.

 Ingredients:

Cake

375g butter, softened

375g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract/vanilla bean paste or the seeds from 1 vanilla pod

6 eggs, large

375g self raising flour

Approx 1/2 jar of strawberry or raspberry jam

Buttercream

200g butter, softened

400g icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or the seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod

1-2 tbsps hot water

Ganache

200ml double cream

125g dark chocolate

To Decorate

A selection of chocolate e.g. Crunchie bars, Mistrels, Chocolate Buttons and chocolate curls.

You will also need 2 x 8″ cake cards

Makes 1 x 8″ layer cake. Continue reading →