Birthday Custard Sponge

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Title: Birthday Custard Sponge

Recipe details

This is the cake you want your children to cook you on your birthday, or on mothers day or whenever they want to show gratitude and appreciation for your presence.

  • Serves:

    12

  • Contributor:

    Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

For the cake

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 3 tbsp custard powder
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 4 eggs
  • 225 g soft butter
  • 200 g caster sugar
  • 2 tbsp milk

For the buttercream filling

  • 125 g icing sugar
  • 4 tsp custard powder
  • 75 g soft unsalted butter
  • 1½ tsp boiling water

For the chocolate icing

  • 60 ml water
  • 2 tbsp golden syrup
  • 125 g caster sugar
  • 175 g dark chocolate
  • Hundreds and thousands

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Recipe by Nigella Lawson

For other great recipes and more information about Nigella, click here

How healthy is your lunchbox?

Each serving contains

  • Calories: 

    310kcal, 16% of your GDA

     

  • Sugar: 

    18g, 20% of your GDA

     

  • Fat: 

    18g, 26% of your GDA

     

  • Saturates: 

    10g, 50% of your GDA

     

  • Salt: 

    1.2g, 20% of your GDA

     

of your guideline daily amount

For further information on guideline daily amounts, please visit Tesco Healthy Living.

Method

For the cake

  1. Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F, Gas 4, butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.
  2. Put all the cake ingredients, apart from the milk, into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk 1 tbsp at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.
  3. Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack, peeling away the paper.

For the buttercream filling

  1. Process the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filling easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the custardy buttercream.

For the chocolate icing

  1. Combine the water, syrup and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat. Let it come to the boil and then take it of the heat.
  2. Break up the chocolate into small pieces and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds and thousands before the icing sets.
  3. Prong with candles, light them and sing.

Cook's tip

When making the chocolate icing you can swap the dark for milk chocolate however you must remember to use 50g caster sugar instead of the full 125g.

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Copyright

© Nigella Lawson 2004, Feast. Photograph of Nigella by James Merrell, 2004.