Mei's Birthday Cake

hmm...i know that this is a way overdue post but i haven't been satisfied enough with my food photography so far to put up any pictures. and seriously, the mind is lacking in inspiration for food write-ups due to more involvement in the area of food creation and experiments:)

yet, i owe zoe a promise for mei's birthday cake recipe and so...here is it:

Berry Delightful Birthday Sponge Cake!

Ingredients for lemon sponge cake:

follow this link:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lemon-Sponge-Cake-I/Detail.aspx

Ingredients for cream cheese filling and frosting :

WARNING: this was an impromptu trial-and-error filling that i came up with at the last minute so i didn't have exact quantities to follow. With the days that have passed since the birth of this cake, i must WARN that quantities might be a bit messed up! sorry!

250g tub of ricotta, 125g Philly cream cheese (softened at room temp and chopped up), 2/3 cup cream, 1/4 cup castor sugar, 100g melted white chocolcate, 1/3 cup mixed berries (frozen) 1 packet of 10g gelatin (melted under instructions of packet), 1 tsp of lemon zest for extra zang!

10 or more strawberries, thinly sliced for placing in between layers of cake

1) Whisk cream and castor sugar together till form soft peaks.
2) Add in ricotta and Philly cream cheese and whisk till smooth and creamy
3) Melt white chocolate in heatproof bowl over pot of boiling water. Stir in slightly cooled white chocolate into cream mixture from above.
3) Stir in mixed berries and beat for about 1 minute with electric whisk to break up berries.
4) Stir in slightly cooled gelatin and lemon zest till all well blended
5) Set in fridge for about 10 minutes till mixture is creamy and not liquiid-like.

Assembly of cake:

1) Place first layer of sponge on plate.
2) Spread a layer of cream cheese filling over. Place 1 layer of sliced strawberries over.
3) Cover with another layer of cream cheese.
4) Place sponge cake over.
5) Repeat and finally cover outter parts of cake with cream cheese filling, grated dark chocolate on sides and mixed berries on top.
6) Sprinkle some vanilla icing sugar over.

All done! Decoration for cakes is much more fun if you leave it up to your own creativity! so please don't be stifled by the massive list of to-dos here! you can choose to decorate your cake in any way that you think might please the cake-eaters and yourself of course!

much love,
granny bear