Birthday Cakes - Part 1 - Lemon, lime and white chocolate mud cake

For my mum's birthday this year, I was keen to find a lemon cake which is her favourite but with a twist. The Women's Institute of Australia's lemon, lime and white chocolate mud cake certainly provided that - Link here.

The method itself was a little unusual in that you had to melt in a pan, the butter, sugar, white chocolate and lemon and lime rind. I would definitely advise good quality white chocolate here and to stir regularly to avoid the mixture splitting. To cool it down so it could be mixed with the eggs and flour in good time I cooled the mixture in a larger bowl of cold water. The cake itself was a triumph, moist, sticky and delicious. I used smaller tins than recommended cutting each half to make a four layer cake.

Buttercream filling wasn't needed in the original recipe but I just made a simple buttercream using butter and icing sugar and added some of the passion fruit syrup that Cat and I discovered at the recent food festival. I followed the white chocolate and coconut ganache which made a delicious but sickly topping. I could only get hold of solid coconut cream which wasn't easy to work with. I would recommend using the liquid version if possible. To change the texture I added dedicated coconut which I think added to the presentation.

Overall I was very pleased with the result and a great variation of a lemon sponge!

Carly x