RECIPE: Gin and Tonic Cake

I've always enjoyed baking but never really attempted anything out of the ordinary. I've posted a couple of recipes on here but again, they've never been too spectacular. Cue Brad getting me an all-singing-all-dancing food mixer for Christmas and I'm ready to apply for GBBO.

With the arrival of this mixer and a perfectly timed birthday, there was only one thing to do... make a cake. And what do you make for someone who hates chocolate cake (I know, I can't understand it either...)? You consider the things they like most... gin. Gin and tonic cake it is.

Ingredients

For the cake:
250g salted butter
325g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
250g self-raising flour
75g natural yoghurt
the juice of 2 large limes
75ml gin
150ml tonic water
1 tsp dried juniper berries

For the icing:
200g unsalted butter
400g icing sugar
2 tbsp milk
the zest of 3 limes

For decoration:
2 limes (for zest and chopping up)
1tbsp granulated sugar
lemon sherbet sweets
cucumber


Method

1. Heat your oven to 180 degrees and grease two cake tins (I never realised the important of greasing tins until this cake!). Beat together the butter and 200g of the sugar until its fluffy, then add each egg one after the other, after the first has been thoroughly mixed in. Now fold in the flour.

2. Mix the natural yoghurt with the juice of one of the limes and add 50ml of the gin. Add this to the mixture and mix until thick. Distribute the mixture evenly between the two cake tins and put in your oven for 35min.

3. Whilst the mixture is baking, its time to make your syrup. Put the remaining sugar, tonic water and juniper berries into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Make sure all the sugar has dissolved and simmer until a thick syrup has been created.

4. Once your cake is out of the oven, leave it to cool, before pricking the sponges with a fork. Spoon the syrup into the holes, but make sure you keep the sponges in the tins for this, otherwise your kitchen side is going to be super sticky!  

5. Time to create your buttercream! Mix the butter until soft, slowly add in the icing sugar and once fully mixed together, add the milk and lime zest. Add the remaining 25ml of gin to give your icing a lil kick!

6. Spoon your buttercream onto the top of each sponge before sitting one on top of the other. Spread a thin layer of icing over the top and sides of the cake, then sit in the fridge until set.

7. Take your cake out of the fridge and apply the remaining icing. Then its time to decorate!

8. I chose to use lime slices, lemon sherbets (crushed/chopped and sprinkled around) and cucumber slices. All these things I felt would go well and they did. In hindsight I probably wouldn't use cucumber again, purely for personal taste but thats up to you.

And you have your gin and tonic cake! Its the perfect cake for someone who's favourite tipple is a G&T and everyone who tried it loved it! And don't be put off if you're not a gin lover... I'm not a big fan of gin and it tasted amazing. Not to blow my own trumpet, but whats a gal to do when her cake tastes that good?!



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