My middle child turned four last week and I asked him what cake he wanted for his birthday dinner. He was adamant that he wanted a cake with strawberries and cream. I don’t know where he got that from because I don’t recall making one like that in the years that he’d remember. Anyway, strawberries and cream it was.
I looked up a recipe that my friend gave me years ago that I used to make that had been adapted by using rapadura sugar. If you haven’t heard about rapadura, I recommend you google it because it has so many health benefits and it gives a lovely flavour to the cake. In a nutshell, rapadura is sugar cane juiced and dehydrated and unlike regular sugar, all of the important vitamins and minerals have been retained.
I doubled the recipe to do the two layers with cream however in retrospect it probably would have worked and not been so awkward to cut by slicing one cake through the middle and adding the cream. I also used self raising flour instead of plain with the baking powder and bicarb which worked just fine although it’s a little lighter doing it the old fashioned way.
NB: Choose by either doubling this recipe for two layers with vanilla cream like I did or try slicing one through the middle for one that’s not so high!
Rapadura Butter Cake
125gm softened butter 3/4 cup rapadura
1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups flour spelt or wheat
1/4 cup of milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
2 teaspoons boiling water
cream butter, rapadura and vanilla in an electric mixer on high speed
add eggs in 2 batches still beating
add half the flour, combine
add half the milk, combine
add rest of flour, combine
add rest of milk combine
add bicarb and baking powder to mixture, pour boiling water over so it bubbles, combine then pour into a greased tin and bake 30-35 mins at 170°c
Vanilla Cream
1 carton of cream
1 vanilla bean
1 tablespoon of rapadura
whip until thickened
Strawberries
Chop into small pieces, pour rapadura over to sweeten, leave to soak in, add on top of cream then pour over juice.
Here he is, our little man Noam about to blow out the candles. In case you can’t read French, it says Quatre – which translates to four. What a lovely age.
Wishing you all a great weekend!
Mel x
Such a delicious looking cake. Hope your son had a fantastic birthday. x
Thank you Geraldine, he did. M x
Lovely looking cake Mel, Happy Birthday to Noam. The photo of him is wonderful and so are the birthday candles. Are you teaching all your children to speak french?
Thanks Catherine. Yes all our kids are bilingual, Guillaume has only spoken to them in French from day one. xx
it looks SO delicious – how darling is your little boy! Hope he had a great birthday…my eldest turns 11 tomorrow…they grow up so fast!
Aah how lovely Mel! He sounds very similar to Gabriel. Cake looks delicious. Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend lovely xx
You have a smart kid! :-) He looks happy and that is a very lovely picture! I hope you all had a fun day! xx
Thanks Gudy! Enjoy your Friday xx
Here is another one of your receipe that I wanna try… And will. Happy birthday Noam!!
Oh let me know how it goes Canelle. xx
So nice! Happy birthday Noam. You are lucky to have such a great Mum, excellent cook and photographer.
Ha thanks Julia. But I have to say that it was a 1/2 and 1/2 effort, I took the photo of the cake, and Guillaume took the one of Noam… the sweetest! xx