I had so much fun making this drip cake for my daughter’s 13th birthday. She wanted something a little more grown up and fancy, she loved the idea of having drips. So here it is a Triple layer vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream topped with luscious pink white chocolate flavored drips. This layer cake tastes absolutely heavenly and adding a little strawberry jam between the cake layers and fresh fruit to the top makes this a celebration cake that you will be proud to show off to your guests.
Total time: - 2 hours 25mins
For the vanilla sponge cake layers
1 ½ tbsp of vanilla extract
325g of plain flour (all-purpose flour)
Creamy strawberry frosting ingredients
2 tablespoons of double cream (heavy cream)
3 tablespoons of strawberry puree
A couple of drops of pink food coloring (this is Optional)
Strawberry jam to add between the layers
Pink chocolate drip topping ingredients
A few drops of pink coloring
First thing to do is to preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius, grease three 8-inch cake tins and line each tin with a circle of parchment paper.
Add the unsalted butter at room temperature into the mixer and using a paddle attachment start creaming the butter. Creaming the butter should take 4-5 minutes.
When the butter looks lighter in color add in the caster sugar, sunflower oil, vanilla extract and give it another good mix.
When your mixture is creamy light and fluffy add in your eggs one at a time making sure the egg is combined between each egg.
Grab your self another bowl and add in your sifted plain flour, baking powder and salt, give it a little stir to combine the dry ingredients.
Now add in half of your bowl of dry ingredients to the cake batter and mix until its combined.
Add in your whole milk slowly and keep mixing. Your cake batter will look a little curdled at this point but don’t worry it’s supposed to look like this.
Next add in the rest of your dry ingredients and mix until its creamy and smooth. Scrap down the sides of your bowl and give another mix just to make sure that your cake batter is fully incorporated.
Grab your three cake tins and divide the cake batter evenly between them.
Pop them into the middle of your preheated oven for 20-25. To test if your cake is cooked just prick with a skewer or fork, if it comes out clean your cake is ready if there is a small amount of batter on the skewer pop the cake back in the oven for a couple more minutes.
When your cakes are baked remove them from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes in their tins.
After a few minutes remove your cakes from the tins and place on a cooling rack.
While the cake layers are cooling let’s make our strawberry puree, to do this simply wash about 8 strawberries and add them into a food processor and blend until smooth, to get rid of any seeds and unwanted lumps etc pour the puree through a sieve.
For the strawberry buttercream frosting
In a large bowl add your unsalted butter and using a paddle attachment (not whisk) cream the butter, this will take a few minutes.
While the butter is mixing sift your icing sugar into a separate bowl.
Once the butter is completely smooth slowly add in half your icing sugar and mix until combined.
Add in your vanilla extract, double cream and strawberry puree and mix.
Then add in the other half a bowl of icing sugar and mix until completely smooth. You may need to scrape the bowl down a couple of times to make sure that all the ingredients are well combined. If at this point, you’re not happy with the color you can add a couple of drops of pink food coloring, I didn’t need to do this as my strawberries were lovely and red and my buttercream was a lovely peachy pink color so I left mine as it was.
Putting your cake together
Normally when I bake these cakes, they come out with a flat top but if yours has a slight dome using a large serrated knife (a long bread knife will do) remove the domes so they have a flat top.
Place the first cake layer onto a round cake board or cake stand.
First spread a thin layer of strawberry jam to the first cake layer taking out any lumps of strawberry as you go. Spread a good amount of buttercream evenly onto the first layer making sure that it has an even thickness all over (if you want to make each layer perfect I would suggest using a pipping bag with a large round nozzle attachment and start from the center of the cake, swirling round the icing working your way to the edge then smooth with a pallet knife)
Add the second cake layer and do the same again, adding the jam and making sure that the icing is evenly spread, you don’t want a wonky cake, so take your time.
Add the last cake layer and ice the outside of the cake. Smoothing it with a pallet knife. (if you don’t have a pallet knife you could use the blunt end of a long knife, I used to do this before I bought the proper equipment, but please be careful we don’t want anyone to get hurt)
Now we need to make the pink chocolate drips for the topping. To do this melt 60g of white in a bowl. Once the chocolate is melted add in 60ml of double cream, 20g of icing sugar and a few drops of pink food coloring and mix well, wait a few minutes for the mixture to thicken a little before adding to the cake, if you pipe on the mixture to early the drips will be to runny. Now you can add the drips to the top edge of the outside of the cake using a spoon or a piping bag and slowly add one drop at a time. Once you have finished the top edge fill in the top working your way from the center to the edge you have already done. You can then smooth the top of the icing with a pallet knife.
I added a couple of chopped strawberries to the top of the cake for decoration.
And there it is you have yourself a delicious Triple layer vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream
topped with pink white chocolate flavored drips.
