Orange sponge with white chocolate and fresh fruit decorations-Mum's 60th Birthday

Here's a beautiful but very sweet cake, impressive for special occasions. The white chocolate cigarellos and dark chocolate hearts are bought online-pricey but worth it for the wow factor.

Ingredients:

For the sponge:
225g (8oz) butter (unsalted, softened
225g (8oz) golden caster sugar
4 eggs
100g (3.5oz) plain flour
225g self raising flour
1 orange (zest and juice of)
2 tbsp apricot conserve
2 tbsp milk

For the syrup:
25g (1oz) caster sugar
Juice of an orange

For decoration:
125g (4oz) unsalted butter at room temp
Zest of an orange
225g icing sugar
1-2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp apricot conserve
75 chocolate cigarellos
450g (1lb) summer fruit

Preheat your oven to 170 (non-fan) or 150 (fan) & line a greased 8 inch cake tin

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy
Add the 4 eggs and the plain flour and mix
Then add the remaining SR flour, zest, juice and conserve
The mix should be quite slack and fall easily from a spoon, if it does not do this add the milk until it does
Put the mixture in the tin and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes (a skewer should come out clean)

Make the syrup by simmering the juice and sugar for one minute, let it cool a bit then pour it over the sponge (still in the tin), it helps to prick the surface a little. Allow cake to cool completely.

Then you make the orange buttercream-whisk the butter with the orange zest and add the icing sugar a bit at a time. Then it will be too dry so add the milk and gently stir until well mixed & spreadable. Take the sponge cake and cut it in half horizontally, a icing turntable and a long serrated knife is really helpful for this part. Put a layer of the buttercream & then a thin layer of conserve in the middle of your cake, I found its better if you go easy here as the cake is VERY sweet and if you put a lot in the middle its all a bit much.

Once you've got the cake back together cover it with the remaining buttercream-its best to get it on the plate or board you want to serve it on at this point as its hard to handle once the cream is on it. Then you can start placing the cigarellos on, you will need to cut them down-beware here as its easy to end up with all different sizes and then it looks scruffy (well if you have a perfectionist head like me) or maybe you might like it to be "rustic"!!! Use a measure or template and cut straight!!

Then throw all the fruit and any other decoration you fancy on top...et voila!

(Happy 60th Birthday Mum Xxxxx)