Angel Cake Slices

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190ºC/170ºC Fan/375ºF/Gas Mark 5. 

2. Prepare your tin - if you're using a rectangle baking tin, use your greaseproof paper to divide the tin in to 3 even sections and grease with some butter. 

3. To make the cake mixture, add the eggs and the golden caster sugar in to a glass bowl and place over a pan of simmering water. Gently whisk the mixture until the sugar has fully dissolved and you read 43ºC on your sugar thermometer. 

4. Take the mixture off the heat and whisk until it is thick and produces that ribbon trail when the whisk is lifted. You want to make sure there is plenty of air in the mixture. 

5. In 3 separate bowls, divide the plain flour between them and in 3 more bowls do the same with the butter. In the first bowl of butter, stir in the vanilla extract. In the 2nd bowl, add a few drops of pink food colouring and a few drops of the raspberry flavouring. Finally, in the 3rd bowl add a few drops of yellow food colouring and lemon extract. 

6. Divide your whisked egg mixture in to 3 new bowls. Sift 1 bowl of flour over the egg mixture and gently fold it in. Add 1 bowl of the butter and fold (you will need to do ths quickly but softly to stop the mixture from collapsing and ending up with a flat cake). Repeat the process with the remaining 2 bowls so you end up with 3 bowls of combined mixture - lemon, vanilla and raspberry.

7. Pour each mixture in to a section of the divided cake tin and bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes. You'll know when it's ready as the top has a slight spring to it when you gently press it. Leave to cool slightly before transferring to a cooling rack. 

8. To make the buttercream, in a saucepan melt the caster sugar in 2-3 tbsp's of water over a very gentle heat. 

9. While the sugar is melting, whisk the egg white in a clean bowl (it must be clean!) until soft peaks. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, increase the heat to bring the mixture to a rapid boil. Your sugar thermometer should read 121ºC.

10. Remove from the heat and slowly pour the hot sugar syrup onto the egg whites, all the time whisking at full speed. You shoudl continue whisking until the buttercream has cooled to room temperature and is thick and glossy.

11. Add the butter gradually, whisking each time until it's fully combined and smooth. Chill in the refridgerator until it's firm to the touch.

12. Once the sponges are cooled, trim them to make neat edges and identifical sized slices. Spread a thin layer of buttercream over the vanilla sponge and top with the raspberry sponge. Spread another thing layer of buttercram over the raspberry layer and top with the lemon sponge. 

13. To make the fondant icing, sift the fondant icing sugar into a bowl and add 1-2 tbsp's of water, mixing until you have a relatively stiff consistency. It shoudn't be too stiff that you can't spread the icing over the sponge. Take a quarter of the icing and add a drop of pink food colouring, leave the remaining 3 quarters white. 

14. Spread the white fondant icing over the top of the top sponge layer (the lemon sponge) - only add it to the top, not the sides. Add the pink fondant icing to a piping bag with a fine writing nozzle attached. Pipe fine lines of pink icing across the width of the cake with approximately 1cm between each line. If you wanted to recreate the feathering effect grab a cocktail stick and very gently drag the pink lines in the opposite direction.

15. Slice in to 6 and enjoy!