Laura?s Happy Cake

I’ve called this my happy cake because making cakes makes me happy, and we all need a bit of joy at the moment. It came to me in a flash when I should have been doing some work this morning, so I thought I’d try it out and see what happened*.

*what happened was, I made a nice cake and got a bit behind with work, but you can’t win them all…

This is the classic sponge recipe with a slight American addition of a dash of milk. I think it makes it a bit more moist than normal with the milk.

Serves 6

For the cake

For the topping

First of all, set your oven to 180°C (a little less, maybe 170, if you’re using a fan oven). Grease and line a cake tin.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs. Blend well, using a hand blender, then add the flour and baking powder. Mix until all the ingredients are incorporated.

In a glass, mix the milk and the vanilla extract (we use the Nielsen-Massey brand) and then add to the cake mix and blend well until incorporated.

Put the mixture in the cake tin and stick it in the oven for 30-35 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready when a skewer comes out clean. Turn out onto a cooling rack.

For the icing, use a hand blender and mix the cream and lemon curd. You might want to taste it and add up to another dessert spoon of lemon curd if you really like it; I think with one spoon the taste is really subtle.

Whip up the concoction and then spread on your cake once it has cooled. Add the raspberries in any kind of design you like. I went for a twee traditional one; you could go a bit French and cover the whole top of the cake with raspberries (you’ll need two punnets to do that successfully).

Ta-daa! Your happy cake is ready. Serve with tea and friends.