Show off your baking skills with a delicious home-made gin infused cake.
Cape Town - Valentine’s DAY, is a time to celebrate romance and put a smile on the faces of friends, family and significant others.
With everyone scratching their heads around gift ideas for their special person, why not show off your baking skills by gifting your significant other with a delicious home-made gin infused cake from Roku Japanese Gin.
Apart from making a great gift in its beautiful hexagon shaped bottle, it also serves as the perfect accompaniment for a romantic evening.
Five lucky readers also stand the chance to win a bespoke Roku Japanese Gin hamper to the value of R 1 500 with Weekend Argus and Roku Gin.
Roku Japanese Gin cake ingredients:
For the cake:
-250g salted butter
-325g castor sugar
-4 eggs
-250g self-raising flour
-75g natural yogurt
-2 large limes, juice only
-75ml Roku Japanese Gin
-150ml tonic water
For the icing:
-200g softened butter
-400g icing sugar
-2 tbsp milk
-zest of 3 limes (using up those you’ve juiced, above)
To decorate:
2 limes, zested then 1 cut into thin wedges to decorate
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp juniper berries, lightly crushed
lemon sherbets
¼ cucumber, peeled into ribbons
party straws
Below is a step-by-step recipe:
Step one:
Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4. Grease and line 2 x 20cm cake tins. In a freestanding electric mixer, or using an electric whisk, beat together the butter and 200g of the sugar until pale and fluffy, for around 5 minutes. Add the eggs one by one, making sure they are fully incorporated before adding the next one. If the mixture looks like it might split, add a tablespoon of your flour, then fold in the rest of the flour. Mix the natural yogurt with the juice of one of the limes and 50ml of Roku Japanese gin, then add this to the cake mixture to make a thick and silky mixture. Split the mixture between the cake tins and bake for 35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Step two:
Meanwhile, make the syrup. Put the remaining castor sugar, tonic water and juice of one lime into a saucepan over medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, bring to the boil and cook for 5-7 minutes, until it’s a thick syrup that goes until it is thicker and not darker in colour.
Ensure that you stop boiling the syrup once you see it goes darker in colour. Cool for 5 minutes, strain then pour in the remaining Roku Japanese gin and set aside.
Step three:
Once the cake is out of the oven, allow to cool for 5 minutes, then prick all over with a skewer, then liberally spoon the syrup mix over both of the cakes. Allow to cool completely in the tin.
Step four:
To make the buttercream, beat the butter until soft, then add the icing sugar, a little at a time to avoid a sugar cloud. Once fully incorporated, add the milk and the zest of the limes.
Step five:
To assemble, place one of the cake layers on a cake board, cover with 1/3 of the buttercream then sit the second cake layer on top. Cover this, too, in just a thin coat of icing then put the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up, this will make it easier to get the rest of the icing on smoothly. Use the remaining buttercream to cover the top and sides of the cake.
Step six:
To decorate, mix the lime zest with the sugar. Sprinkle this over the cake with the juniper berries and finish with lemon sherbets, lime slices, cucumber ribbons, party straws and any other gin and tonic paraphernalia you fancy.
1. To enter SMS: WAROKU, followed by your name, and email address to 33258.
2. The competition opens today and closes on Wednesday at noon.
3. Winners will be notified via email.
4. SMS costs R1.50.
5. The prize is non-exchangeable, non-transferable and is not redeemable for cash or other prizes.
6. Terms and conditions apply.
Weekend Argus