I can’t quite remember what put the idea into my head, but a while ago I became a bit obsessed with making a bright pink icing for something. I put it on hold until I had a special occasion, as bright pink cakes aren’t just for a normal day hinnying around in a field, as I’m sure you can appreciate.

Then came around my lovely friend Charlotte’s birthday – I’m not allowed to disclose the age, and my horse years to human years conversions aren’t great anyway, but it was a special birthday, for which a special cake was most definitely required.

I’d already decided that the pinkness in the icing would come from raspberries, so I thought a plain victoria sponge would be best to complement it, sandwiched with raspberry jam.

I toyed with the idea of using jam to make the icing, but sweet jam + sweet sugar = super sickly, so decided to make a sort of thick raspberry syrup from frozen berries instead, so it would have a really concentrated flavour.

It was a little time consuming (especially compared to just throwing a dollop of jam in), but well worth it as the icing looked amazing.

Happy birthday Charlotte!

A very pink raspberry birthday cake

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 225g self raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder