I mean come on! What's not to love!! Raspberry Ripple and Chocolate Cake PEOPLE!!!

You may know that I have a chocolate obsession and you may also know that I have a favourite chocolate cake recipe.

You may also know I get bored easily, and while I wouldn't trade my chocolate cake for the world, I rarely eat it the same way twice.

So this cake has been made into cupcakes, layer cakes and a truffle cake base. I have added the batter to pancake batter and brownie mix. There has even been a deep fried a blob of batter, you know, just to see what would happen. It was ok, not great, just ok.

I have also switched up my cake coverings and fillings more times than I can count.

Let's see...

• On its own just naked, with no covering or filling
• Chocolate Fudge Buttercream
• Chocolate Malt Buttercream
• Caramel Sauce
• Milk / Dark / White Chocolate Ganache
• Lemon Curd
• Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• Real Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• Toffee Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• Whisky Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• Cream Cheese Frosting
• Fresh Coffee Cream
• Mango & Passionfruit Sauce

And probably some others that I can't remember. What can I say, I eat a lot of cake folks.

That being said, having looked at my list, I've never served it with your good old regular Buttercream. Icing sugar and butter. This is one of lifes simplest pleasures.

So I whipped up a little 6-inch Chocolate Cake and set about making some buttercream.

When I went digging for my Icing sugar I came across my many packets of Sugar and Crumbs flavoured icing which I'd squirrelled away. My thoughts of 'Standard Buttercream' went out the window.

One flavour jumped out at me straight away. Raspberry Ripple. Chocolate and raspberries? Raspberry Ice Cream Sundaes with hot chocolate sauce! Yup, a match made in heaven.

Now, I didn't need a huge amount of buttercream because I only have 4 x 6-inch layers to fill so I didn't use the whole bag. I, also, didn't need to add any flavour because it was so strong.

So how do I know it was strong? Well, I may, MAY, have eaten a tiny, eeensy weeensy bit of the flavoured icing sugar neat. Just to see how strong it would be. You know, to be thorough, in my bake-sperimenting. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Don't judge me.

So I paired my recipe down a bit and mixed in some plain icing sugar.

Also, the icing sugar is flavoured, not coloured, so if you want it to look like it tastes, add some colour.

Raspberry Ripple Buttercream Recipe

200g Sugar and Crumbs Rasberry Ripple
50g Icing Sugar (regular unflavoured Icing Sugar)
150g Unsalted Butter, Softened
4 drops Americolor Soft Gel Paste Deep Pink
3 drops Americolor Soft Gel Paste Fuscia
1 Tbsp Cooled Boiled Water (Optional)

• Beat the butter with a hand mixer or stand mixer until pale and fluffy. It took my stand mixer about 5 minutes on high to get it where I wanted it.
• Gradually add in the icing sugar, all of it, the Sugar and Crumbs and the plain, into the beaten butter, with the mixer on low.
• If you have a splash guard on your mixer USE IT. I spoon my icing sugar through the opening in mine.
• I also wrap a slightly damp tea towel around the edge of my bowl. This helps prevent your entire kitchen being covered in a fine mist of icing sugar.  Admittedly, delicious smelling icing sugar, but still a faff none the less.
• As it's mixing add your colouring. I prefer gels and pastes because they are better quality than liquid. But it is especially important for buttercream as you don't want to add excessive amounts of fluid. It can derail the stability of your buttercream.
• As your buttercream comes together check the consistency. If it seems too stiff for whatever you want it for then add a little water. Very small amounts at a time. You can use full-fat milk, cream and melted chocolate here too. Just be aware, for refrigerated dairy products, you are reducing the shelf life of your buttercream. If this is something you are going to eat straight away don't worry about it.
• I was planning on piping this buttercream and I felt the consistency was fine without adding anything. Had I wanted to spread it, or crumb coat with it, I would have thinned it out a little.

Raspberry Ripple Layers

Once I whipped up the buttercream, I couldn't get the idea of an ice cream sundae out of my head. So I quickly made a very small batch of Milk Chocolate Ganache and spread a thin amount on each layer of my cake.

Then using an open star tip I piped a large rosette on each layer of cake, they weren't neat but then they didn't need to be. Just enough for there to be an even distribution of icing per layer.

At the end, I just did a large rosette on the top. I think I was quite pretty. Also, it's quite a lot of very sweet icing for quite a small cake, so I didn't want to overdo it.

This cake is definitely a little rough around the edges, I torted it quickly and without precision, I piped the layers roughly, but all in all this cake was about flavour. Honestly, I'm really pleased with the result.

After all of that, I had a little cake mix and buttercream left over so I whipped up a few cupcakes. I absolutely loved how these turned out and they had a great buttercream to cake ratio, making every bite delicious.

This buttercream set really nicely and as I didn't add any extra fluid it crusted a little bit, giving a lovely texture difference between the soft deep chocolatey cake and the bright sweet raspberry ripple buttercream.

Next time, I think I might make vanilla sponge in an ice cream cone and pipe this icing as a 2 tone buttercream like a real raspberry ripple. Maybe even with a little raspberry ice cream sauce!

Ok, I'm hungry just thinking about it.