Spring into Summer!

They say April showers bring May flowers...so what do May flowers bring? With Spring graciously bowing out and making way for some spectacular sunny Summer  days, we drew inspiration from the beauty of nature - birds, bees, bunnies and the like, for little tea cakes that are simple, scrumptious and every bit as spectacular!

A sturdy and versatile Victoria sponge is used for the cake layers and the layers are filled with Summer fruit and berry preserves, to inject an element of surprise and flavour as you bite into them. Top with a luscious white chocolate ganache and a layer of rolled fondant to assemble these pretties!

For this recipe you will need:

Ingredients:

200g unsalted butter at room temperature

200g  sugar

4 medium eggs

1tsp pure Vanilla extract

200g All purpose flour

1.5tsp Baking powder

pinch of salt

2 Cups of White Chocolate ganache, made from quality white chocolate

Good quality White rolled fondant 

yellow Americolor food colouring

pink Americolor food colouring

Blue Americolor food colouring

Electric green Americlolor food colouring

1/2 cup preserves in fruit flavour of your choice

Equipment:

Cake pans

Mini cake boards

Springerle molds

Yield: 8 inch cake or 4 x 3 layer mini cakes

Instructions:

• Pre heat your oven to 350 F
• In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, Cream the butter and sugar, until soft and fluffy.
• Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl and add to the mixture of creamed butter and sugar slowly to incorporate.
• add a tsp of vanilla extract and mix it into the batter
• Sift the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
• Add to the wet ingredients with the paddle running on low and mix just enough to incorporate all the ingredients together.
• Prepare and line your cake pans and fill them upto 2/3rd s full with the cake batter.
• Bake for 30 minutes or so until a clean skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
• Fill cake layers with ganache and preserves and coat with ganache.
• Cover will rolled fondant, and emboss with Springerle molds and finish with Ribbon for Summer mini tea cakes that are simply spectacular!!

Happy Baking and let your joy burst forth, like flowers in the spring!