White Christmas cake

Name: White Christmas cake
Total time: 1 h
Yield: serves 10

1 hour + cooling
serves 10
Easy

This is a very light vanilla cake, and one that we love to serve on Christmas Day in place of a normal fruit cake. In order to keep the colour as white as possible, use a very light-coloured butter such as Lurpak

Ingredients

milk 240ml
vanilla extract 1 tsp 
plain flour 270g
cornflour 30g
baking powder 1 tbsp 
white caster sugar 350g 
butter 120g, very soft 
egg whites 6, (see box below) 
white glitter or sprinkles or crushed candy canes to decorate 
canes to decorate

FROSTING

butter 250g
icing sugar 350g

Method

Step 1

Heat the oven to 180C/fan160/gas4. Butter and line two 20cm cake tins, make sure they seal tightly if they have loose bases. Whisk the milk and vanilla with a good pinch of salt.
Step 2

Sift the flour, cornflour and baking powder together. Beat the sugar with the butter, then beat in the flour mixture. While beating, add the milk mixture a little at a time to make a smooth batter. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture. Divide the batter between the tins and bake for 30-35 minutes or until cooked through (when a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean), but only lightly browned all over. You want as little colour as possible.
Step 3

Make the frosting by beating the butter until it is very light and fluffy, then beating in the icing sugar. Add a layer of frosting between the layers and sandwich them together. Frost the cake and then decorate it.

Rather than separating lots of eggs for the white Christmas cake, buy a carton of Two Chicks Egg Whites – available in most supermarkets. twochicks.co.uk

Check out more festive bakes here...