Pretty as a flower and just as delicate to taste. One bite of this sponge will whisk you away to a quintessentially English country garden. Whilst lychee might not star in your everyday cake recipe, boy does this ingredient bring the flavour when paired with rose!
Thank you to Juliet Sear from 'Juliet Bakes' on ITV who shared with us this tasty recipe. You don't need an excuse to bake it, this sponge is perfect for any occasion.
Cut the lychees into quarters and dry them between paper towels.
Step 4
Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
Step 5
Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.
Step 6
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and then fold them into the creamed butter mixture, pausing from time to time to add part of the 100ml (31/2fl oz) reserved lychee syrup, until that is all incorporated too.
Step 7
Fold half of the prepared lychees into the batter.
Step 8
Portion the batter into two greased and lined 15cm (6in) round baking tins.
Step 9
Bake for 30-35 minutes
Step 10
While the cakes are baking, prepare your buttercream.
Just as with calculating cake batter quantities, if you need more than the 1.5kg (3lb 5oz) of buttercream that this recipe makes, just multiply all the amounts. It’s worth making more than you need because running out before your cake is fully covered is something of a nightmare, so err on the side of generous when calculating amounts.
Step 11
Place all the ingredients into a large bowl, or the bowl of your mixer. I use Silver Spoon icing sugar as there is no need to sift, but some other icing sugars may need sifting into the bowl to avoid lumps.
Step 12
Set your mixer on a low speed, otherwise you will dust your entire kitchen in powdery icing sugar! Beat the ingredients together until they are pale and smooth. At this point you can add a little just-boiled water, a tablespoon or so at a time, on a low speed and then raise the speed to high. This helps to make the icing paler and more creamy. Add the rose water and the remaining lychees to it.
Step 13
Once your sponges are baked and have thoroughly cooled, layer the sponges with buttercream between them, then crumb coat the outside of the cake with buttercream using a palette knife.
Step 14
Apply a thicker layer of buttercream for the crystallised rose petals to adhere to. This layer doesn’t need to be completely smooth as it will be covered by the petals.
Step 15
Starting on the top of the cake, apply the palest crystallised rose petals in a circle.
Step 16
Continue to apply petals in circles of increasing size, gradually changing the petal colours as you get to the sides, until you reach the base with the darkest petals.
Ingredients
MetricImperial
For the Cake
1 canLychee in syrup
240gAllinson's Self Raising Flour
2 tspBaking powder
1 tspSalt
240gUnsalted butter (room temperature)
180gBillington's Unrefined Golden Caster Sugar
3Eggs
2 tspNielsen-Massey Vanilla Extract
For the Buttercream
500gSoft unsalted butter
1kgSilver Spoon Icing Sugar
2 tspNielsen-massey rose water
A few tbspJust-boiled water (optional)
Utensils
2 round cake tins, 5 x 15cm (2 x 6in)
Palette knife
5 Baker Ratings
There’s no temperature for baking
Baking Mad
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us, we will get this updated.
Happy Baking!
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It says to add vanilla extract to the butter and also to the buttercream. Only mention to rose water is on Step 11 and doesn’t mention any quantity. Not sure if I should replace all mentions to vanilla extract by rose water. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Baking Mad
Hi there, many thanks for bringing this to our attention, we will look into it and amend the recipe, thankyou :)
