Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hello, I’ll be making a 2 tiered wedding cake for end of October 2015. The customer wish to have a 10″ round vanilla rasberry swirl cake which is so in-trend now. Q1- Can this cake strong enough to hold an 8″ top tier-with all dowellings in. After reading some of other bakers in other webs stating that its too soft, I’m very anxious. Q2- Can you suggest any good recipe for this cake? Q3-If used fresh rasberry, how long the cake be kept fresh without anyone getting stomach ache or the cake tastes off?

The cake above is going to be filled with Italian buttercream. Is this ok ?
I know too many questions, but I need help urgently. madewithlove, you’re a gem….help

Hi roseawan

I will try and answer your questions in order of asking.
Q1 without looking at the recipe I cannot say how soft or dense the cake will be. If you have a recipe in mind please could you give me a link where I can see it. Recipes can be adapted to make them stronger depending on the ingredients. It also depends what sort of cake/weight you will be using as the top tier. However dowelling as shown in Paul’s tutorials is good practice for safe stacking.
Q2 I don’t have a personal recipe but this looks good to me:
http://www.foodtolove.com.au/recipes/raspberry-swirl-cake-14822
I wouldn’t normally recommend a recipe unless I bake it up myself.
Q3 If you use fresh raspberries in the batter I would suggest cooking them in a couple of tablespoons of sugar and a good squeeze of lemon first to reduce some of the water content. I can’t say for definite how long the cake would stay fresh, there are too many variables which determine that. However, to err on the side of caution, I would say a couple of days in a cool enviroment. A good raspberry conserve would be better for a more stable shelf life.
Fresh raspberries shouldn’t really be used as a filling if you are decorating the cake over a couple of days. Fresh fruit moulds very quickly and not worth risking.
Q3 Italian buttercream is pretty stable. The boiled sugar will cook the meringue. Just make sure that you cook the sugar for the appropriate time shown in your recipe. I always cook the sugar a couple of degrees more to compensate for the cooling while pouring onto the meringue.

The above is just my opinion from my own experience as a home baker. I usually bake different recipes to see what works best as not all recipes work out.

I hope this helps. Hopefully other members will share their opinions and tips too.

Hello Madeitwithlove,
Thanks alot for your advice. I just noticed out of anxiousness, I was not able to spell raspberry. The recipe http://www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk/2014/05/raspberry-ripple-cake.html which says the cake not able to hold sugarpaste (response no 3) but received alot of good responses.
Another alternative is to bake Jane Hornby vanilla cake recipe ( baked this recipe twice before) but I feel it needs quite abit of simple syrup. Can I just swirl raspberry jam into the vanilla cake mixture instead of fresh fruits? Do you think it might change the texture of the sponge? Thanks again.

Hi roseawan

I’ve had a look at the recipe and it’s just a normal victoria sandwich made with margarine and with raspberry thrown in. It’s the margarine which makes it too light for it to be covered with sugarpaste. Jane’s recipe would be great. You’ll see throughout this site that I am a huge advocate of all her recipes, have recommended the vanilla cake recipe many times and have received lovely feedback from other members. The vanilla cake recipes uses that small amount of plain flour which makes all the difference to making it sturdier. You could also use Mrs Jones’ vanilla sponge recipe and add an extra 10% -20% flour to make it stronger. Here is Mrs Jones’ recipe:

10’’ Round Deep Vanilla Sponge Cake

Have a look at what member Jackie Harris says about Mrs Jones’ recipe here:

Wedding cake query

Yes you can use raspberry jam or a good conserve which will have whole raspberries in it. Use enough to give colour and the ripple. The jam will also moisten the texture of the cake so you may not need the syrup in Jane Hornby’s recipe.

Hope this helps.

Hi madeitwithlove,
Thanks for the great advice. Will trial bake Jane Hornby’s recipe with raspberry jam in a couple of days.
Thanks again.

Hope it works out for you!