7-Up Dessert Cake

Having made James Martin’s chocolate coca cola cake a few times, and it always going down well, I decided to adapt this recipe to make a 7-Up cake to take to a dinner party last night. It took a bit longer to cook than the original recipe, but it still resulted in an amazing citrus tinged, dense sponge. The same kind of texture as a firm, fudgy brownie. The lime juice in the icing definitely gives it a kick without being too over powering as well, but feel free to substitute the lime for lemon in the extra icing, or omit it all together.

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

270g self raising flour

300g caster sugar

Pinch bicarbonate of soda

250g unsalted butter

250ml 7-Up

125ml whole milk

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

For the topping:

100g unsalted butter

2 tbsp 7-Up

200g icing sugar

For the extra icing:

3 tbsp lime juice

200g icing sugar

Pre-heat your oven to 180c and grease/line a loose bottomed cake tin.

In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda together.

Put the butter and 7-Up in a small saucepan and heat gently, until the butter has melted. Pour the contents of the saucepan into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Add the milk, eggs and vanilla and mix gently but thoroughly. Pour the mix into your cake tin and bake for 45-60 minutes, depending on your oven, until a knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, it’s slightly firm to the touch and golden on top.

Remove from the oven and leave in the tin while you make the topping.

Put the butter and 7-Up in a small saucepan and melt slowly. Bring the mixture to the boil and then remove from the heat and stir in the icing sugar. Beat until smooth and then pour over the cake while it’s still in the tin and still warm. The sponge will soak up some of the topping and leave a glaze on top. Leave to set in the tin.

If you want to add the extra icing, you can do this once the topping has set.

Stir the lime juice and icing sugar together in a small bowl, making sure there are no lumps, and pour over the top of the cake while it’s still in the tin and wait for it to set.

Once both layers have set, you can remove the cake from the tin. Serve with Chantilly cream or vanilla custard.