Raspberry and White Chocolate Loaf Cake – My Grandma’s Baking Part IV
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on Rhubarb Cake, the third part of a short series I called My Grandma’s Baking. In this set of articles, I wrote how my Grandmother – the master of yeast cakes had learned how to make them and how she later passed this knowledge to me.
In the third part of the series, I was explaining myself a bit about using the same dough recipe again. My excuse was that if you had something perfect, there was no point in improving it. But life verified it, and here is how it happened:
Although I’ve made quite a few yeast cakes, I still don’t remember the exact recipe for the dough. So, whenever I am to make it, I prefer to have the instructions in the vicinity.
This was also the case when I was preparing the dough for my new Raspberry and White Chocolate Loaf Cake. I was in a rush, so whenever I wasn’t sure about the ingredients or next steps, I threw a quick glance at the recipe. Everything was going as usual until I added the prepared wet ingredients to the dry ones.
I noticed the dough was much thinner than usual. I was a bit surprised and started thinking that I probably accidentally added too much milk or butter. Another glimpse at the instructions dispelled these doubts: the amounts I used were correct.
In this case, I decided to follow in my Grandmother’s footsteps. She always used to play by ear when it came to making her yeast cakes. If the dough felt too thin, she would have added more flour. Or more milk, if the dough had felt too thick. Thus, I was adding more flour, bit by bit, till the dough seemed to have the right consistency.
Raspberry and White Chocolate Loaf Cake – Heavenly Result of a Mistake
When the roll was finally in the oven, I was slightly frightened to even look at it. I was afraid adding more flour made the cake denser, harder and not as nice as the previous ones. So, you can only imagine how surprised I was when we tried the cake and discovered it was the best and fluffiest yeast cake I had ever baked!
I was completely puzzled. Thus, I looked at the recipe again, this time without rushing. And I discovered that instead of using 2 egg yolks, I used 2 WHOLE eggs!
That was apparently the reason why my dough was so much thinner: 2 beaten eggs create much more volume than 2 beaten egg yolks. And a huge part of this extra volume consisted of air made by beating egg white. That is why my cake ended being even lighter and fluffier than my previous ones.
So, there were two results of my mistake. The first one – the perfect recipe for Raspberry and White Chocolate Loaf Cake. And the second – a lesson for me that maybe sometimes it makes sense to work on improving something that seems to be perfect. Or that it is ok, to make mistakes because they may lead to incredible results 😉
Raspberry and White Chocolate Loaf Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 250 ml milk
- 60 g sugar
- 20 g yeast
- 75 g butter
- 2 eggs
- 350 g plain flour
- pinch salt
Filling:
- 400 g raspberries
- 250 g white chocolate chopped into small pieces
- 75 ml double cream
Instructions
- Warm up the milk. It should be warm but not hot, hot milk will “kill” yeast.
- Pour half the milk into a cup, add 2 tbsp of sugar and the yeast, stir it and leave till it rises.
- Melt the butter.
- Beat the eggs with the rest of sugar for 2-3 minutes till fluffy.
- Put the flour and salt into a big bowl, add the milk and beaten eggs and knead for a minute until more or less combined; add the yeast mixture and knead for 1-2 minutes and finally add the melted butter. Knead the dough until it is smooth (however small lumps are fine) and it doesn’t stick to your hand anymore. It should take about 5-7 minutes.
- Leave the bowl with the dough in a warm place until it doubles in size. Depending on the temperature, it can take between 1 and 2 hours.
- Cover bottoms and sides of 2 baking tins (approx. 25cm x 8cm) with baking paper.
- Transfer the dough onto a kitchen surface dusted lightly with flour. Divide it into 2 parts and spread each part into a shape of rectangle roughly 25x15cm. The best way to do it is with your hands but make sure you cover your hands with oil at first to prevent the dough from sticking to them.
- Scatter the raspberries and 100g of chopped chocolate on top of each of the rectangles (half of both ingredients on each). Roll them separately (along the shorter side) and cut in the middle lengthwise. Twist the two pieces around each other (it doesn’t matter if it looks messy). Transfer to the baking tins and leave to rise (approx. 10-15 min.)
- Preheat an oven to 180 Celsius degrees (fan oven).
- When the loaves have risen, place the tins in the hot oven and bake for 30-40 min. until the wooden stick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out dry.
- Heat up the cream and pour over the rest of the chopped chocolate (150g). Stir till combined and swirl on top of the baked loaves.
Related terms: white chocolate loaf cake recipes, white chocolate and raspberry cake great british bake off, white chocolate and raspberry sponge cake, raspberry loaf cake uk, raspberry and white chocolate cake mary berry, raspberry and white chocolate cake nigella, raspberry and white chocolate tray bake, raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes, http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/33719/raspberry-and-white-chocolate-loaf-cake.aspx, https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7034/white-chocolate-and-cherry-loaf
Great suggestion!
Thank you 🙂