Recipes or ideas needed for a white chocolate birthday cake please

[NeverHadANickname]

I am making a cake for a relatives special birthday in a couple of weeks and would like to make it something they really like. White chocolate would be ideal, possibly with raspberries or something? It could be white chocolate cake or plain sponge with white chocolate filling of some sort. I think possibly a round cake with a few filled layers. Then I'll do a nice topper to go on it.

Any help or ideas appreciated.

Anyone? Would a swiss roll roulade type sponge work layered up with a sort of whipped white chocolate gnache? Or would the sponge be too light? I'll think I'll need to make a test one first.

I don't know I'm afraid but I'm bumping/marking place because that sounds amazing.

well, you can make the body of the cake with anything you like, but the best way to cover a cake in white chocolate is to buy the chocolate that you put in chocolate fountains, melt it and then plaster it onto the cake. i find that it is really easy to work with.

i always grate a bar of normal white chocolate and use that to sprinke onto the setting cake covering, making it look all splattery but still melts in the mouth.

On the cake weight front though - if you do decide to go the ganache route (though Google says it's tricky) then I agree Vic Sponge would be too light. I'd do a cake with ground almonds or yoghurt in it to give it some weight.

I have seen an amazing cake that was surrounded by vertical white choc fingers all the way round, no gaps. Looks really pretty with raspberries piled on top or roses or with choc truffles etc and a contrasting ribbon.

Thank you all. White chocolate fingers or something similar round would cover any mistakes easily.

I have never had a sucessful white chocolat ganache but when I used rubbish chocolate in a milk chocolate one and it didn't set I whisked it for it to set.

I think Nigella Lawson makes a devils food cake or something with a nice looking frosting, I might look that up or something similar and do some practice.

Can't link as I'm on my phone but look at the "birthday bug cake" on the bbc good food website, might be a bit childishly decorated for what you want but it's fab and easy to do and you can adapt the decorations. I've also done the fingers round the cake thing on a dark chocolate cake and it's really easy and looks impressive so I'm sure you could do that on the bug cake with white chocolate fingers.

Try Madeira layers instead of sponge if you need the cake layers to be firmer. Also Madeira cake doesn't dry out as quickly so you can bake a day ahead.

I like that the birthday bug cake uses white chocolate buttercream icing rather than anything more complicated. I'll give it a try to see if its chocolately enough andmaybe add a bit more!

I've never done a madeira cake but I think I have a recipe so I'll try that with the icing and ask people at work to try it, I'm sure they won't complain.

For decoration I thought I might try to make it look like a small 2 tiered cake with candles round the bottom 'tier' then a topper on top. Possibly with the number and some feathers or something.

Also on bbc good food, "double the love chocolate cake" is a normal dark chocolate cake i think, but with white white chocolate buttercream but might give you an idea for the two tier effect.

That looks really good. Bigger than I need but the right idea. I wonder if I can use white chocolate in the cake and maybe substitute the cocoa with some Thornton's white drinking chocolate powder? Or just up the flour and hope the melted white chocolate is strong enough.

I'll draw an idea I have and see if I can upload it to see what people think. I sometimes go over the top and it ends up looking stupid.

I'd go for a plain vanilla sponge filled with white chocolate buttercream or fresh whipped cream and raspberries, and then white chocolate fingers around the outside and whipped cream and raspberries on top.
I wouldn't want feathers on a cake, personally. I think all deco should be edible!

Ok so a plain sponge, probably madeira with a white chocolate buttercream icing, topper to be decided.

I've hopefully included a picture of how I want it to look. I am rubbish generally at arty stuff and it's obviously not to scale. White chocolate fingers of some sort round the bottom tier. Ribbon (possibly purple) round the bottom layer also to add a bit if colour. Top layer covered with white chocolate buttons, either completely or in a couple of rings. Candles will go round the top of the bottom tier, possibly purple ones to match the ribbon.

They sell white hot chocolate in Whittards, if you want to experiment with that in place of cocoa in a recipe.

Thanks that's good to know. I think I'll try a couple of sponges. It's not til the start of next month so I have a bit of time.

Sounds great OP I'd go for that

I made this recently using the BBC easy vanilla cake recipe. Its a lovely cake that's quite firm.

I meant to make white chocolate butter-cream but I forgot to add the chocolate, it was still lovely mind you!

Thats brilliant. Looks good with the ribbon and chocolate fingers. The recipe looks good for the cake too. Did it layer up well?

The easy vanilla cake is the one I used for the birthday bug cake - delish!

It really is a lovely tasting cake isn't it Iliketoclean? I don't tend to do the syrup though! Never had, you bake it in one deep tin, I halved it and put buttercream and jam in the middle and covered the sides in the buttercream to, very easy to stick the choc fingers on then! Top is just buttercream dyed pink and piped on in swirls.

I don't do the syrup either! It's still lovely without.

Today is the day I bake the cake! Just heading out to get the last few bits. Wish me luck!

So this is the finished cake. It outs me completely so if anyone does recognise me please let me know so I can name change.

I didn't use the syrup and it looked really moist anyway. I used white chocolate buttercream but it doesn't taste very white chocolatey. I decided on white chocolate shards on the top. I also couldn't find any nice purple candles so went with silver.

Wow looks amazingly professional! Well done!

Thank you I was pleased with it. Everythig went smoothly for a change, I kept expecting something to go wrong.