It was my friend Cat’s birthday and I think she’ll agree that she’s a very lucky birthday girl - cake-wise at least. She got 3 cakes, 2 of which were from me! I had planned an earl grey and black currant/cassis cake, when her sister asked me to re-make a the cake from last year. So the first cake she got was this pared-down version of last year’s banana nut crunch cake.
As I was making her second cake, I was reflecting on how long we’ve been friends - a long time. How long? Since the days when she worked at Blockbuster! Do you remember Blockbuster? Ahh, those were the days.
Anyway, do you know Ribena? It’s a black currant drink concentrate and it’s something that I’ve been wanting to incorporate into a cake for a while. So I tried out a black currant (aka cassis) curd.
Check out the verdict at the end of the post!
Earl Grey Cake Layers
I used the recipe by Tessa Huff and baked in 3, 6-inch cake pans for 35 min.
Cassis Curd (Make ahead of time)
Ingredients
½ cup Ribena
3 eggs
6 Tablespoon butter
Directions
- Combine Ribena and eggs in a small sauce pan. Put on low heat and whisk continuously until thick.
- Place butter in a bowl and strain the curd with a fine sieve over top. Stir to combine.
- Cool completely before using.
Toasted Meringue Decor
Ingredients
4 teaspoons of meringue powder
4 Tablespoons of Ribena (or water)
Directions
- Combine meringue powder and liquid and whip with a hand held blender until thick and stiff.
- When ready to decorate, spoon onto cake and make peaks with a spoon. Toast with a kitchen torch.
Tea Syrup
See directions here and cut amount in half.
Early Grey Swiss Meringue Buttercream
See directions in this earlier post.
Colour ¼ cup buttercream purple using gel food colouring. Colour the remaining buttercream blue.
Assembly
- Place first cake layer on your cake board or plate. Brush tea syrup on top.
- Pipe a dam around the perimeter of the cake using the blue buttercream.
- Spread the cassis curd inside. Place next layer and repeat. Finish with final cake layer.
- Crumb coat the cake with blue buttercream. Freeze for 10 minutes.
- Add final buttercream coat. Smear purple buttercream around the cake and use a bench scraper to smooth it out and blend.
- Add meringue and toast with a kitchen torch.
Verdict: Overall, this cake was really tasty. It has moist cake layers and visually, it was eye-catching. I just wish that the cassis flavour cake through more - it was a tad egg-y in flavour. In the future, I would just stick with black currant jam. I think Ribena could work well in a frosting.
