This recipe comes from the award-winning Bad Girl Bakery. This family run bakery and café, based in Highland town of Muir of Ord, has developed a formidable reputation for producing the very best hand-crafted, homemade and beautifully baked delights. Bad Girl Bakery specialises in using seasonal ingredients to create fresh cakes, baked daily, that often come with some surprises! Find a jammy crumble topping or a hidden centre, but most importantly, our creations are a delicious treat.

The bakery and café is open daily and has won a number of awards. Bad Girl Bakery is currently a finalist in the Highlands & Islands Food & Drink Awards.

For more information visit: www.facebook.com/badgirlbakery

Makes one cake

Ingredients

For the cake:

375g unsalted butter or baking margarine

375g caster sugar

6 medium eggs

375g self raising flour

1tsp vanilla

For the butter cream:

3 x 250g unsalted butter

1050g icing sugar

1 tsp good vanilla extract

To fill and decorate:

Fresh raspberries

Good quality raspberry jam

Equipment needed:

A stand or hand mixer

3 x 8” sandwich tins

Grease proof paper

Piping pag

Open tip

Method

For the cake:

1 Pre-heat your oven to 170°C. Grease and line your tins.

2 Beat the butter and sugar together until the colour is lighter and looks fluffy.

3 Add in the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of the flour and remember not to add the next egg till the last one is all mixed in. Don’t panic if it splits, just add some more flour. Add the vanilla extract.

4 Add in rest of the flour and mix until smooth, then divide between two tins and smooth out.

5 Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

6 Let the cake cool a little before turning out.

For the butter cream:

1 Soften the butter in short bursts in the microwave until soft.

2 Beat the butter and vanilla until smooth and add in the icing sugar. Mix well.

3 Top tip: This mix gives you more than enough to fill and fully ice your layer cake, as well as pipe swirls for decoration. It you want a naked cake, or less buttercream, cut the qualities of ingredients by half.

For the filling and decoration:

1 Once the cake is cool, take the first layer and place it flat side down and pipe a dam of buttercream round the edge.

2 Pipe more in the centre, but just enough for a thin layer. Top the centre layer with raspberry jam and fresh raspberries.

3 Repeat with the next layer then top with the final cake, flat side up. Next, apply a crumb coat (very thin base layer of icing to set the cake and trap the crumbs so the final layer is neat).

4 Pop the cake into the fridge until the crumb coat is set firm, then repeat with the final layer of icing. Top with fresh raspberries, dots of jam and piped swirls.