Planning a wedding, birthday, or any celebration at all this summer? One Lovely Day, the new book from Claire Donaldson, event stylist and director of Onelovelyday.co.nz, is filled with more than 300 pages of delightful photos and expert styling tips and tricks, plus there are also recipes for cocktails and nibbles to serve your guests. In the book, Claire shares the story of her journey throughout New Zealand bringing parties to life from her renovated caravan bar. Here, she shares a recipe from the book.
MIXED BERRY CAKE
Ingredients
225g softened butter
1½ tsp vanilla essence
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2¼ cups self-raising flour
1-1¼ cups milk
Filling
500ml bottle cream and 1 Tbs icing sugar whipped together until thick
Raspberry jam
Topping
4 assorted punnets of berries
Summer flowers, mint leaves
Method
1. Set oven to 180C and grease and line the base of 3 x 20cm round cake tins.
2. Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Fold in sifted flour with enough milk to give a soft dropping consistency.
4. Divide mixture equally into the three prepared cake tins.
5. Bake 25-30 mins. Check to see they are cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle of one of the cakes. If comes out clean, it's cooked. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
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Advertise with NZME.To Assemble
1. All three cakes need to be cool and levelled to make the tops flat if they have risen in the middle during baking.
2. Lightly spread the plate with raspberry jam and place the first cake in the centre upside down.
3. Spread with jam and one-third of the whipped cream. Repeat with second and third cakes.
4. Finish with jam and cream and decorate with berries, flowers and mint leaves.
• Extract printed with permission from One Lovely Day by By Claire Donaldson. Published by Bateman, $45
