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Midnight Blue Velvet Cake

Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Cake
Prep Time 35 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes
Servings 16
Author thebakingexplorer

Ingredients

For the sponge

  • 400 g Plain flour
  • 2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 ½ tbsp Cocoa powder
  • 400 ml Buttermilk
  • 3 Eggs large
  • 2 tsp Cider vinegar
  • 2 tsp Vanilla extract
  • 350 g Butter or baking spread
  • 350 g Caster sugar
  • Blue food colouring

For the buttercream

  • 600 g Icing sugar
  • 100 g Butter or baking spread
  • 250 g Cream cheese
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract

For the meringue kisses

  • 3 Egg whites
  • ¾ tsp Cream of tartar
  • Double the weight of your egg whites Caster sugar
  • Red food colouring
  • Blue food colouring

Instructions

  • Pre-heat your oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F/Gas Mark 4, and grease and line four 8" cake tins
  • To make the sponge sieve the plain flour, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder into a bowl
  • In another bowl mix together the buttermilk, eggs, cider vinegar and the vanilla extract
  • In a third bowl cream together the butter and the caster sugar. Then add the blue food colouring, add enough for a deep blue colour
  • Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture to the bowl in thirds, one at a time, and mix between each addition
  • Separate the batter into the cake tins
  • Bake them for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean, then turn them out of the pans and leave them to cool
  • To make the cream cheese frosting mix together the icing sugar and butter. Then add the cream cheese and vanilla. Mix well with an electric mixer then put it in the fridge to chill
  • To make the meringues heat the caster sugar in the oven on 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 for 5 minutes. To find out the weight of sugar to use, weigh your egg whites, then double the sugar weight
  • Whip up the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff peaks form
  • Prepare the piping bags by turning them upside down and painting stripes of red food colouring on one, and blue food colouring on the other
  • When the sugar is done, continue to whisk the egg whites with an electric hand mixer and add the warm sugar a spoonful at a time. When it is all mixed in, keep mixing for 5 minutes until you can rub the meringue between your fingers and cannot feel any grains
  • Halve the meringue and put it into the prepared piping bags. Pipe it out onto lined baking trays
  • Bake the meringues on 90C/200F (it’s hard to convert this into Gas Mark as it’s less than a half) for 40 minutes
  • Trim the edges of the sponges as needed then started to stack them, spreading the cream cheese frosting between each layer. Pipe the cream cheese frosting on top for a neat finish, then sprinkled some of the crumbs from trimming the sponges on top
  • Decorate the top of the cake with the meringues
  • Store leftovers in an airtight container in a cool place and eat within 3 days