Sunday bakes - ‘My grandma could have taken Mary Berry’ Zuppa Inglese cake

This was a cake that my Dad told me my grandma used to make, but as far as I could see there wasn’t a recipe of the exact method she used out there so I decided to put one up.

This isn’t an elegant looking cake but it sure is impressive!

Ingredients

Sponge

360g unsalted stork

360g caster sugar

6 eggs

360g self-raising flour

400grams of dried fruit

100ml marsala

Crème Patissiere

500ml full fat milk

1 vanilla pod

6 egg yolks

4.5oz caster sugar

2oz plain flour

Italian meringue

6 egg whites

12oz caster sugar

9tbsp water

Method

First make your sponge by whisking the butter and sugar together until fluffy then beat in the eggs one by one. Sift in the flour and stir in lightly. Butter your cake tins, you will need 6 sponges each the same size so you may need to re-use your tins and cook in batches. Divide the sponge mix into 6 even parts and spread very evenly in the cake tins, it will be thin. As the mixture is so thin the cooking time will be short, in my oven it was 15 minutes at 180, but yours may differ so please take care and watch your sponge carefully.

Leave your sponges to cool on a rack. 

Crème Patissiere

In a large saucepan heat the milk with the split vanilla pod. Whisk up the sugar, flour and eggs in a large bowl. Take out the vanilla pod and pour the milk into the bowl a little at a time, mixing thoroughly each time. Once combined pour the mixture back in to the saucepan and heat, stir the mixture constantly while it thickens so avoid lumps and then remove from the heat.

Once the sponges are cooled brush them with the marsala, layering up several times to allow a fair amount to soak into the sponge. 

Layer up the sponge with the crème pat and the dried fruit, covering each sponge in crème pat and then dried fruit, be generous with both. 

Once you have layered them all up set to one side and make the Italian meringue.

Whisk up the egg whites into stiff peaks.

Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and heat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is boiling aggressively.

Pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites in a thin stream whisking constantly. This is not really easy to do with a single pair of hands and a manual hand whisk, but if I, the clumsiest person in Surrey, can do it I’m sure everyone else can. Keep whisking until the meringue has cooled and looks glossy.

Coat the cake in the meringue and bake in the oven for 15 minutes until the outside is crisp and bronzed. 

This cake looks a bit like a snow heap, although I’m sure there would be a way to dress up the meringue, but it tastes incredible and is a pretty impressive cake to roll out on special occasions.