Champagne and Strawberry Cake

With Mothering Sunday fast approaching, our talented chefs have designed a sumptuous strawberry filled cake perfect for celebrating and saying thank you to all the mother figures in our lives. Available to enjoy in our Café alongside a pot of tea, we're also really happy to share our recipe, ready for all to indulge from home.

Makes twelve generous servings

Ingredients

For the Cake:

450g Caster Sugar
450g Self-raising Flour (sieved)
450g Unsalted Butter
7 Eggs
1 Large lemon (zested)

Champagne-soaked Strawberries:

10 Large strawberries/ 1 Punnet
275ml Champagne/prosecco
150g Strawberry Jam

Champagne Syrup:

150g Caster Sugar
250ml Champagne/prosecco (from the strawberries)
30ml Champagne/prosecco
2 tsp Lemon Juice

Buttercream:

250g Unsalted Butter
600g Icing Sugar
5 tbsp Champagne Syrup
5 tbsp Champagne

Method

Pour 275ml of champagne over strawberries in a bowl and leave to soak. (Make sure to reserve this champagne later in the recipe.)

Grease a 20 cm round tin.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Once combined, add eggs and mix for 1 minute. Add flour (sieved) and mix until smooth (do not over mix)

Bake on fan 4, 160 degrees for 32 minutes.

Pour reserved champagne from the strawberries into a pan, add the lemon juice, sugar, heat over a low-medium heat until sugar has dissolved.

When the cake is fresh out the oven, gently prick the top of the cake with a fork and drizzle the cake with syrup. Keep around 5 tbsp of the syrup for the butter cream icing.

Leave the cake to cool in tin and cut cake in half once it has completely cooled.

Soften butter and beat with icing sugar until fluffy, slowly add champagne syrup and champagne, keep beating until all the buttercream is smooth and light.

Put aside 250g icing for decoration- for piping buttercream flowers onto the cake. Use the remaining buttercream to ice the top and middle of the cake.

Spread the jam in the middle of the cake, leaving 1 inch around the edge of the cake. Slice the Champagne -soaked strawberries and place on top of the jam, making sure strawberries are visible on the edge of the cake.

Stack the other half of the sponge on top. Cover the top of the cake in the buttercream ensuring a smooth finish, then pipe 12 rosettes around the edge of the cake. Sprinkle freeze dried strawberries over the piping and finally place a strawberry cut in half on each rosette.

Allergens: Gluten, Eggs, Milk, Dairy.