The Wendy House..: A Cake Full of Love

A special occasion is always an ideal time to get your baking game on, which is exactly what I did. Last weekend was my Mum & Dad’s Wedding Anniversary, so I decided that it was a great opportunity to bake a cake and spent about 6 hours in the kitchen that day; preparing, measuring, mixing, whisking, baking, cooling, whisking again, washing, decorating, thinking, wishing I was sitting and taking photographs for my blog!)

So all in all it was a hectic day, but the outcome was worth every minute.

Rather than going for my usual sponge cake recipe, I wanted to try a different recipe this time as it was a special occasion and you know what they say “Variety is the spice of life” and all that. Because I recently purchased the Lakeland 50^th Anniversary Recipe Book I decided to make the Genoise Sponge (by John Whaite p120, Lakeland 50th Anniversary Recipe Book). I’d heard of a Genoise sponge before on TV and saw recipes in magazines, but didn’t really know what was special about it or what made it different compared to other cakes.

Turns out the Genoise Sponge is different from your usual sponge as a foaming method is used rather than the creaming method (mixing whole eggs and sugar to create volume instead of using a raising agent. The Genoise sponge requires less sugar and butter than usual, so if you like your cakes less sweet, this is the one for you.. However you could always use filling and decoration to make up the flavour and sweetness instead of the cake itself.

I do believe that a Genoise sponge will be reoccurring in my kitchen as it is not difficult to make and it went down a storm.

So here is my Parent’s Wedding Anniversary Genoise Chocolate Cake!!

(Basically a Genoise Sponge Cake with a Fruit Explosion)

Rather than opting for the Chocolate Ganache filling and topping, I thought it would be easier to use Double cream, whipped with Dark chocolate and Icing Sugar.