Neapolitan Cake and Grand Designs

Arabella has just a handful of school days left before she graduates, has two weeks of holidays, then heads back to sit her exams.  It seems we’ve entered a time of finishing, finals and farewells and on Tuesday she will have her last drama class.  Last week the class decided that on their last lesson they absolutely must have a class party.  The teacher suggested everyone bring something for the girls to share.  But they all instantly looked at Arabella.

‘What about those brownies your mum made?  Could you bring those in?’ asked one.

And hot on her heels another said, ‘And I really liked the fruit slice.  Could you bring that in too?’

Then a great suggestion came from the back of the room, ‘I know, what about if your mum makes all the sweet things.’

‘Yeah’, they all said in unison, ‘Your mum’s the best cook’.

So Arabella came home from school on a high with grand visions of her final drama class and presented me with a long list of everyone’s requests.  ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

‘We’ve organised a class party and these are the things we’d like you to make.’  And I looked at the list in disbelief.

‘How much food can a bunch of dieters eat?’  (Because they’re all losing weight to fit into their formal dresses for the Valedictory Dinner).  ‘And what’s everyone else bringing’.

‘No, no one’s bringing anything.  We’ve decided we just want you to make the food’.

‘Really?  Don’t I look tired.  I can’t do that Arabella, I want you to have a nice class party but I’m not the class caterer.  I’ll do one thing and I’ll make it special’.

I started to think about when I was at school and what would have been special to me.  I remembered a friend I had in primary school and I used to be green with envy because everyday she had in her lunch box a large slice of what was called, ‘Rainbow Cake’.  It wasn’t the colours of the rainbow though it was white, brown and pink and just the colours of my favourite neapolitan ice cream.  It was definitely a bought cake that was sandwiched together with mock cream and covered in pink icing and was clearly laced with artificial colourings and flavourings which summed up everything I loved and everything I wasn’t allowed.

With nostalgia egging me on, I decided to make this, a homemade version, for my daughter’s final drama class.

Neapolitan Cake

Serves:  An entire drama class

Degree of Difficulty:  4/5 (because of the time involved and the mess, mess, mess)

Cost:  Actually not a lot because it requires basic, easy to source ingredients.

For the Chocolate Layer:

• 185g butter
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 tspns baking powder
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 cup milk

Pre-heat oven to 160C (350F).

Grease and line a 9 inch round cake tin.

In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time stirring well after each addition.  Add dry ingredients and milk and beat until well combined.  Pour into prepared pans and bake for 35 mins or until cooked.  Rest for 5 mins in pan then turn out onto a wire rack to completely cool.

For Vanilla Layer:

• 185g butter
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tspn vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 tspns baking powder

Pre-heat oven to 160C (350F).

Grease and line a 9 inch round cake tin.

In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add vanilla extract.  Add dry ingredients and beat until well combined.  Pour into prepared pans and bake for 35 mins or until cooked.  Rest for 5 mins in pan then turn out onto a wire rack to completely cool.

For the Strawberry Layer:

• 185g butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 packet strawberry jelly
• 3 eggs
• 2 tspns vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• 2 tspns baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup pureed strawberries (I mashed the strawberries with a fork)

Cream butter, sugar and jelly crystals until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add vanilla extract.  Add dry ingredients alternating with milk and beat until thoroughly combined.  Stir through pureed strawberries.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 mins or until cooked.  Rest for 5 mins in pan then turn out onto a wire rack to completely cool.

This recipe has been loosely adapted from Sweetapolita’s Neapolitan 5-Layer Birthday Cake with Strawberry Frosting.

(For best results, wrap cakes individually in cling wrap and freeze overnight to make the assembling and icing of the cake easier).

For the Mock Cream:

•  1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup water
• 250g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

Gently dissolve the sugar and water until you have a syrup consistency, then boil for about 3 to 4 minutes.
Beat butter and vanilla until it is as white as possible.
Gently pour in the cooled syrup in a thin stream until mixture is light and fluffy.

(For best results, do not refrigerate the mock cream as it will be too hard to spread over cake).

This recipe has been adapted from ABC Central West, Mock Cream.

For the Strawberry Frosting:

• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 4 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 60mls whipping cream
• 1 tbspn vanilla extract
• splash of strawberry essence (I used Queen)
• pink food colouring

Beat butter until white as possible.  Gradually add icing sugar.  Beat in cream and vanilla and strawberry essence.  Taste to see if more essence needs to be added to give that strawberry flavour.  Tint icing pink.

This recipe has been loosely adapted from Sweetapolita’s Neapolitan 5-Layer Birthday Cake with Strawberry Frosting.

(For best results, do not refrigerate and use immediately).

To Assemble Cake:

If necessary (and it was for me) trim cakes so they are of a consistent height, about 4cm.

In the middle of a large cake board or similar (I used a 12 inch (30cm) cake board) place a spoonful of mock cream, then place the chocolate layer of cake on top.  This will stop the cake from slipping and sliding on the board.  Spread top of cake with mock cream then place strawberry layer on top.  Spread with mock cream then place vanilla layer on top.  Cover cake completely with strawberry frosting.  Decorate by piping around top of cake and base of cake with tiny buds of icing.  Using tweezers, place tiny candy balls in centre of each bud.  Decorate top of cake with anything you fancy.  (I used tiny white and pink flowers I bought from a kitchenware shop). 

This cake is rich and sweet.  Great for teenage girls all excited about finishing school and stepping out into the world.

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