Talk

Flip

For related content, visit our food content hub.

1 2

For related content, visit our food content hub.

Food/recipes

Chocolate cake with white lemon frosting - Josceline Dimbleby?

31 replies

Sinjistalk · 17/11/2019 18:58

Can anyone help me find a recipe? I lost my lovely mum last month, and we are approaching our first Christmas without her - difficult in lots of ways. I would like to make the cake she always made for us for Christmas but can’t find her recipe. It was a chocolate cake, with cranberries between the layers and crunchy white lemon frosting that looked like snow. I think it may have been a Josceline Dimbleby recipe, as she bought a lot of her recipe books from Sainsbury’s in the ‘70s & 80’s and I remember her using the books every Christmas during my childhood. I’ve looked online but can’t find the recipe - does anyone have any ideas?

OP posts:

Report

FawnDrench · 18/11/2019 18:20

Don't think it is but wondered if it could be something like this - has all the ingredients you stated but seems to be more of a syllabub affair.
Sounds delicious though!

If you knew the cookbook it came from you could almost certainly get the recipe.

SERVES 7-8
DESSERTT*
VEGETARIANN*
GLUTEN-FREEE*
APPEARS IN

JOSCELINE DIMBLEBY’S COMPLETE COOKBOOKK*
By Josceline Dimbleby

250 g/9 oz fresh cranberries
5 tablespoons water
150 g/5 oz caster sugar
2 tablespoons dark rum
1 lemon
300 ml/½ pint double cream
50 g/2 oz icing sugar, sifted
150 g/5 oz plain chocolate

METHOD
Put all but 4 or 5 cranberries into a saucepan with 3 tablespoons of the water and the caster sugar. Stir over a medium heat until the sugar has completely dissolved, then cover the pan and simmer gently for 6-8 minutes, until all the berries have popped and the consistency is mushy and very thick. Remove from the heat, stir in the rum and leave to cool completely. Then spoon the mixture into a 1.2 litre/2 pint pudding basin and spread it up the sides to line the basin thickly and as evenly as possible.
Next grate the lemon rind and squeeze the juice of half the lemon. Whisk the cream until it starts to thicken, then whisk in the sifted icing sugar and continue whisking until the cream holds soft but not stiff peaks. Very gradually stir in the lemon juice with a metal spoon, followed by the grated rind. Spoon the syllabub into the cranberry-lined basin and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.
Break the chocolate into small pieces. Put it with the remaining 2 tablespoons of water in a bowl set over a saucepan of very hot, but not boiling, water; make sure the water is not touching the base of the bowl. Stir the chocolate now and then until it has melted smoothly, then remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10-15 minutes. Remove the pudding basin from the fridge, dip it into a sink of very hot water for just a minute or two, and turn out on to a flat serving plate, giving it a firm shake. Then slowly spoon the melted chocolate over the cranberry dome as evenly as you can, though it doesn’t matter if little bits of cranberry show through towards the bottom. Top the dome with the reserved cranberries and refrigerate again until your ‘surprise’ is ready to serve.