Neapolitan Cake
I love, love, love this cake. I’ve made it numerous times, although am sometimes thwarted in my ambition by not being able to buy Jello on this side of the Atlantic.It just doesn’t work with British jelly products. I’ve tried, and it’s a no-go.
It’s a rather stunning Neapolitan strawberry, chocolate and vanilla flavoured cake, courtesy of Sweetapolita but more than somewhat adjusted to fit into a British cake tin. If you try to make this one, you’ll be eating cake for several months. As it is, my significantly adjusted version still calls for a 9″ cake tin. Several in fact.
It’s actually 3 different recipes required to make just the one cake. And the strawberry recipe is something special. It was originally invented by Gothic Girl on AllRecipes.
The chocolate layer is Sweetapolita’s Rich and Ruffled cake – and even though I’m not keen on chocolate, this is definitely a great recipe to make all by itself if you’ve the mind. And the white layer is her Old Fashioned Party Cake which is taken from a recipe by Edna Staebler’s book, Food that really Schmecks.
The first time I made this I went the full 5 layer hog. I was attending my first ever meeting of the Norwich Clandestine Cake Club and I was very nervous and worried about what all the ‘proper’ bakers would think about the icing, which isn’t my strong point. They liked it. A lot. I was pleased. There was so much cake, everyone at the meeting ate some, them took some home. When I got home my husband had some, and finally the gannets in the office polished it off. It was huge, despite halving the amounts states for each layer before I started.
It’s a truly unusual cake. And happily quite delicious. Also rather stunning to look at once cut into. I decided three layers was more than sufficient and I’ve improved with age on my exterior icing.
The strawberry cake is a bit of a faff. In fairness, the whole cake requires some effort. But the strawberry layer actually takes everyone by surprise because it actually tastes of strawberry as opposed to just being coloured pink. The chocolate cake is vastly improved by the shot of coffee mentioned. And the white angel cake is a delicate little flower.
I made another red, white and blue version for the Olympics, and decorated it with summer berries. Was amazing.
This recipe’s most recent outing was at my friend Claire’s book launch. Her book, The Choice, is all about a world where eating cake is banned, so to celebrate it being published, the most decadent cakes just had to be baked. Mine was the gluten-free cake. Didn’t worry about the dairy-free this time round: butter was called for, after all, it was all about decadence.
