Strawberry Jelly Cake

Yet another cake club has come around and today's theme is "Sweets for my sweet". Cue memories from my youth ( yes I can remember that far back!!!) of Cherrylips, Cola Bottles, Fruit Salads and Blackjacks, along with going to the corner shop with 10p, that my sister and I had managed to alleviate from our dad, for ten penny sweets. Fantastic!

Originally, I toyed with the idea of doing a Cola Cube Cake and even purchased the cola crystals from the local sweet shop, but at the last minute bottled it in favour of a Strawberry Jelly Cake. And I am do glad that I did!

The idea came about from yet another tried and failed attempt to get J to try something new. I bought a couple of packets of jelly and attempted to get him to try and eat some. Needless to say no amount of Si and I trying to eat it and make mmmm noises would even get him to take even a bite.

So here I was left with a whole pile of jelly and no idea what to do with it. I HATE waste and needed to come up with something to do with it. So an idea formed. Would it work in a cake? The answer is a massive resounding yes!!!

The recipe is super easy, yet yields a huge reward. You need to make a plain vanilla sponge (my favourite recipe is below) and bake in a round cake tin. Allow it to cool completely and then turn the cake upside down.
Grab a skewer and stab holes all over the base of the cake, taking care to not go all the way through the cake. You probably want to only go about two thirds of the way through the cake. Make up two packets of full fat jelly with 100ml of cold water and microwave for about 1 min / 1min 30, until it is liquid and mix to make sure all of the jelly has melted.
Si then came up with the genius idea of syringeing the jelly into each of the holes until all of the liquid had been soaked into the bottom of the cake, taking care not to let any of the jelly roll down the sides of the cake, as this would lead to the cake sticking to the plate it was on, and trust me it is near impossible to get off again without leaving half of the cake behind!
Transfer the cake, covered to the fridge and let it set overnight. Serve by itself, or even with vanilla ice cream!!
Also we store ours in the fridge to keep the jelly set.

Vanilla Sponge Recipe
200g self raising flour
1tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar
200g unsalted butter at room temp
4 large eggs
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

Preheat the oven to 180C fan/350F /gas 4 and grease and line a baking tin
Mix all the dry ingredients together and add the wet ingredients. Then mix in a stand alone mixer or with an electric hand mixer for about 2 mins.
Place ingredients into the tin and bake for about 20-30mins until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.