Raspberry Dessert Cake

Oneof my friends on Facebook the other day sent me a photograph of a dessert they had found and wanted to know if I had ever seen it, or made anything like it.  I managed to track the recipe down to this place.  It appears to be in German.  I tried to translate it, but had no luck, and so instead I set about recreating my very own version of something similar, and with (I have to admit) most delicious results!  Oh how I love the challenge of creating my own recipes from scratch!

It is composed of a white cake base, a raspberry filling, a whipped cream cheese filling and a final topping of crisp biscuits/cookies.  (Make sure you don’t put the cookies on until just before serving because if you do it too soon, they will soften, which isn’t bad, but isn’t actually what you want.  You want a crisp topping.

The cake is an old handwritten recipe from my mom, simply entitled Alice’s Plain Cake.  It was a cake she used to make me when I was a child that was considered suitable for a young child’s digestion.  (My family all calls me Alice.)   This was the perfect base.  Moist and delicious, with a simple vanilla flavour.

For the raspberry filling I used both fresh and frozen raspberries.  I used the frozen berries, along with sugar and a cornflour/cornstarch paste to create a type of raspberry glaze/filling/pudding.   I used cornflour because it creates a transparent pudding.  Once cooked and cooled, I folded the fresh raspberries into this and then spread it over the baked and cooled cake layer.

For the creamy layer, I whipped some cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and a small amount of thick/double/whipping cream together until thickened enough so that I knew it would stand up to the rest of the dessert when chilled and which would cut easily.  I spread this over the raspberry layer.

The dessert was then covered tighty and refrigerated overnight.  (Six hours would do it as well, so if you made it in the morning, you could serve it that night.)

The final touch was crisp biscuit/cookies which were simplt laid out on top of the chilled dessert.  I had wanted to use Social Teas but couldn’t find any square or rectangular ones when I went to the shops, only round ones and they wouldn’t work at all.  SO I chose to use Nice Biscuits, which are a coconut type of plain biscuit, topped with a sugar coating.  They worked perfectly, and like I said, don’t add them until just prior to serving, or they will soften.  I suppose it all depends on what you want.

The end result was a dessert which was so incredibly delicious that I didn’t dare keep it in the house for very long.  Todd and I each had a square (Topped with some whipped cream and fresh berries.)  The rest was divided between my next door neighbor for her to share with her son, and sent down to our friend Peter Lee who was celebrating his 75th Birthday!  Both were very much appreciated!

This was a real show stopper, and yet so simple to make.  Especially when you break it down into its three element, and just create one at a time.   It isn’t a fiddly dessert to make, and it sure was delicious!  A simple and yet elegant dessert that will have everyone scrambling for seconds!

Debunking the myths of English Cookery, one recipe at a time.
The English Kitchen
http://theenglishkitchen.blogspot.com/