Recipe: Caramelised smoked white chocolate and lychee cake

This recipe was impressed by a candle I used to be burning as I used to be conjuring up new cake ideas.

The smoke, and the refined and candy fruitiness of that candle, translate into the flavours of this cake.

Liquid smoke is straightforward to search out at most supermarkets, as are tinned lychees, which I’m obsessive about.

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CARAMELISED SMOKED WHITE CHOCOLATE AND LYCHEE CAKE

Prep time: quarter-hour

Baking time: half-hour

Prepared in: 1 hour 45 minutes

Components

For the cake

100g white chocolate buttons

2 teaspoons liquid smoke

150g butter, room temperature

120g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 free-range eggs

125g spelt or all-purpose

white flour

75g floor almonds

2 teaspoons baking powder

Pinch sea salt

125g full-fat unsweetened Greek yoghurt

1 can of tinned lychees, drained and minimize in half

For the vanilla bean cream cheese icing

150g butter, softened

110g icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

100g cream cheese

To brighten

Handful of white chocolate buttons

Technique

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking tray and a pair of x 22cm cake tins with baking paper.

First, make the caramelised smoked white chocolate. Mix the white chocolate with the liquid smoke and unfold out evenly onto the lined baking tray. Place within the oven for 10 minutes, or till the buttons are golden in color. Put aside to chill.

Subsequent, make the cake. Within the bowl of an electrical mixer, beat the butter and sugar and vanilla collectively till gentle and fluffy.

Add the eggs in one by one, ready till every egg is absolutely integrated earlier than including the subsequent.

Mix the flour, floor almonds, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In two components, add the dry substances. Combine between every addition till simply mixed, being cautious to not overmix.

Gently fold by way of the yoghurt with the smoked caramelised white chocolate buttons.

Evenly divide the batter between your two tins and dot within the lychee halves, urgent them down frivolously.

Bake for roughly half-hour, or till golden in color, springy to the contact and a skewer inserted comes out clear.

Enable to chill for 10 minutes earlier than turning out onto a cooling rack.

In the meantime, make the icing. Within the bowl of an electrical mixer, beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla collectively till pale and fluffy. Steadily beat within the cream cheese till clean.

As soon as the muffins are absolutely cooled, ice one layer after which place the opposite instantly on high. Neatly ice the highest of the cake and embellish with a handful of white chocolate.

Serve at room temperature. Refrigerate in an hermetic container for as much as 3 days.