This cake may look rich with its creamy filling and frosting, but it’s deceptively light. The tang of raspberries checks the sweetness, and also tints the frosting with a delicate blush. We’ve scattered ours with crushed hazelnut praline and freeze-dried raspberries for extra texture, or you could simply pile on extra fresh raspberries if you prefer. You’ll need to assemble the cake a day ahead to give it time to set, making it ideal for entertaining – all you’ll need to do on the day is ice and decorate it.
Pictured with lemon curd sponge cake.
Ingredients
Raspberry crème fraîche filling
Raspberry frosting
Method
Main
1.Preheat oven to 180C and butter three 25cm x 35cm oven trays and line with baking paper. Process hazelnuts, icing sugar and flour in a food processor until finely ground and set aside. Whisk eggwhites until soft peaks form, then, with motor running, gradually add sugar and whisk until stiff and glossy. Fold in hazelnut mixture and orange rind, then fold in butter. Spread evenly onto prepared trays and bake, swapping and turning trays partway through cooking, until light golden brown (8-10 minutes). Loosen edges with a palette knife, invert onto sheets of baking paper, peel baking paper from cake, cool completely.
2.Cut out two 21.5cm-diameter rounds and one 20cm round. Cut 6cm-wide strips from remaining cake. Place one of the larger cake rounds in the base of a 22cm-diameter cake tin and line the sides with the cake strips, trimming to fit. Set aside.
3.For raspberry crème fraîche filling, whisk yolks, sugar and liqueur in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until pale and mixture forms a thin ribbon (5-6 minutes). Squeeze excess water from gelatine, whisk into yolk mixture, then whisk in an electric mixer until cooled slightly (2-3 minutes). Whisk crème fraîche and vanilla seeds in a bowl to soft peaks, fold in yolk mixture, then crushed raspberries.
4.Spread half the crème fraîche filling over cake in tin, scatter with half the raspberries, then place the smaller cake round on top. Drizzle with a little liqueur mixture, spread remaining filling on top and scatter with remaining raspberries. Press remaining cake round on top, drizzle with a little liqueur mixture and refrigerate overnight to set.
5.For raspberry frosting, press raspberries through a fine sieve into a bowl. Add crème fraîche and icing sugar, whisk to soft peaks, then spread on sides and top of cake. Serve scattered with extra raspberries and hazelnut praline.
