Henrietta and the White Chocolate (no Peppermint) Christmas Cake

No peppermint was harmed in the making of this cake. I'd like to try the proper pepperminty version at a later date but at this point in time I thought it might be difficult to market to my current limited clientele of two parents, a cat and six chickens*. Also I made a half recipe of this because it's just after Christmas and frankly no one I know needs any extra cake. The cake itself with just vanilla flavouring is very nice and even though I botched the buttercream, it tasted lovely and I used it as filling rather than icing.

*I need to get back to work because my colleagues will try anything...several times, if required.

Making this cake is quick and easy, although since I'm still in Tassie I had to wait around while the butter softened. At home I only have to take it out of the fridge for a minute and it's at room temperature. 

This is another of Rose's recipes where you mix odd ingredients together to get funny looking mixes - the small bowl with the whisk has egg whites, vanilla and milk - quite a (temporarily) unattractive combination.

The white chocolate custard is brought to you courtesy of Henrietta and friends and their delicious eggs. The girls are big fans of Christmas, just like me, and for similar reasons. Christmas is a scraps bonanza, their top favourites this year being ham fat and Christmas pudding (a sad baking failure due to lack of suet). They're a competitive lot when it comes to food, as you can see. You need to watch out for your toes when the frenzy begins.

You can see how yellow the egg yolks are in the white chocolate custard below. The recipe says to test the temp with an instant thermometer (very good advice) but the toffee thermometer I found was about as instant as dial-up internet.

A not-so-perfect looking cake. It's quite freckly, plus it has a distinct hill on one side despite my efforts to smooth out the batter before I baked it.

I wasn't going to make the white chocolate custard into buttercream because it's not my favourite.  I thought I might add some whipped cream instead and just use it as a mousse-like filling for the cake.  However my mother pointed out there was no problem since she was going to take it for church morning tea and I wasn't going to be eating it anyway (hmmm...a casting vote for the buttercream option). It was hard to argue with that logic so I whipped up the butter and added the custard. It didn't look that good and I think I may have over whipped it. I thought vaguely about looking up ways to fix buttercream but holiday-itis won out and I forgot to care.

'How's the serenity?' Who can worry about cake or icing with this beauty to admire?

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart. If I remember rightly this is a spectacular looking tart - as photographed in the Baking Bible I mean. I'm not promising anything here.