Step outside of the chocolate box this Mother’s Day and show Mum just how much you love and appreciate her with Siúcra’s home baked heart cake recipe. Little kids will be bursting with excitement as they whip up these sweet and sentimental decorative roses which are perfect for a Mother’s Day dessert celebration.

Serves 10 to 12

Ingredients:

Mini meringues
– 2 egg whites
– 150g Siúcra caster sugar

Cake
– 180g softened butter
– 220g Siúcra caster sugar
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 6 eggs
– 360g self-raising flour
– 60ml milk
– 200g raspberries

Simple fondant roses
– 100g Siúcra roll out icing

Decorate
– Fresh organic rose petals
– 100g raspberries
– Sprigs of thyme

Method:

Meringues
1. Preheat the oven to 120°C/fan 100°C /gas 1. Line a baking tray with parchment. Place the egg whites in a clean mixing bowl and whisk until fairly stiff, adding spoonful’s of caster sugar until glossy and stiff.
2. Spoon the meringue mixture into the bag and pipe very small meringues on the parchment and transfer to the cool oven, bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until they easily lift off the parchment.
3. Switch the oven off and leave meringues to cool in there.

Cake
1. To prepare the cake, preheat the oven to 180°C /fan 160°C /gas 4. Line the base and sides of a 25cm heart shaped baking tin with parchment.
2. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs, 2 at a time, beating after each addition. Fold in the self-raising flour and add enough milk until a smooth batter is formed.
4. Assemble half of the raspberries on the base of the tin. Spoon the mixture into the baking tin and arrange the rest of the raspberries on top.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 to 50 minutes until golden and when a skewer is inserted it comes out clean.
6. Leave the cake in the tin for at least 20 minutes to cool before removing onto the cooling rack to cool completely.

Simple roses
1. Take small pieces of fondant and roll out fairly thinly, with your fingertips pinch the one edge of the fondant and then roll it up to form a simple rose. Pinch the fondant to form a stem and cut off the excess.

To assemble
1. Place the cooled cake on a cake stand or platter.
2. Sprinkle with Icing Sugar and arrange fresh petals, fondant roses and meringues, raspberries and thyme over the top.

Catherine Fulvio the award-winning cookbook author has developed a series of sweet and savoury mini recipes exclusively for Siúcra, to showcase the functionality and breadth of the product range as well as demonstrating how fun, quick and easy it is to make delicious dishes from scratch, regardless of ability.

For more information on Siúcra products and/or recipes visit Siúcra’s Facebook page or www.siucra.ie.