Peach Melba Cake with Raspberry Cream

This was a light, moist, fresh and fruity cake, perfect for my vegetarian daughter’s birthday celebration. She requested anything but chocolate so I decided to take advantage of our beautiful local peaches and raspberries and make this (though you could use frozen).

There are several components to the cake, but they’re easy to make and some can be done well in advance. I started days ahead with the peach and raspberry purées, which are used in the filling and frosting and are also served on the side as a sauce. The cake is a vanilla whipped cream cake (no butter!) that baked up quickly. It’s a little light on flavour but had a soft crumb even when cold.

The instructions for the filling and frosting missed a few critical directions:

• the exact quantity of peach puree used in the mousse is not given …..I used ~ ½ cup, enough to give good peach flavour
• both fruit purées must be chilled before adding to the cold whipped cream
• both the finished mousse and raspberry cream must be refrigerated before filling or frosting the cake as the mixtures are quite loose when first made

The flavour of the cake, especially with the accompanying sauces, deserves 5 stars, but the recipe writing could have been better.

Birthday girl was very happy with her cake - she even forgave me for the pink colour, which is not her favourite - as were family and her friends.