Raspberry slice

Raspberry slice is a delicious layered dessert made with homemade raspberry custard, whipped cream and biscuits. Even though it’s still winter outside, I’m already making space in my freezer for the coming berry season, so frozen raspberries were the perfect choice here (I only used fresh ones for decoration). It’s light, refreshing, not overly sweet and makes a wonderful dessert for family gatherings or entertaining friends.

Ingredients for the sponge:

• 3 large eggs
• 100 g caster sugar
• 75 ml vegetable oil (rapeseed or sunflower)
• 160 g plain flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder

All the ingredients should be at room temperature.

Place the eggs and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat on high speed (using the whisk attachment) until the mixture is pale, thick and tripled in volume. This will take about 7–10 minutes in a stand mixer or 10–15 minutes with a hand mixer. The batter should fall from the whisk in a thick ribbon and remain visible on the surface for several seconds. Slowly drizzle in the oil while continuing to beat. Sift the flour and baking powder directly over the mixture and gently fold together with a spatula until just combined.

Pour the batter into a 23 × 33 cm baking tin lined with baking paper and level the surface.

Bake at 170°C for 20–25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool completely.

Ingredients for the raspberry custard:

• 1 kg frozen raspberries
• 100 g caster sugar (or more, to taste)
• 2 sachets unsweetened vanilla custard powder (40 g each)
• 2 tablespoons potato starch
• 250 ml water, divided

Place the frozen raspberries, sugar and 125 ml of the water into a saucepan. Cover, bring to the boil and cook until the raspberries have broken down. In a jug, whisk together the custard powders, potato starch and the remaining 125 ml of water until smooth. Pour into the raspberries and cook, stirring constantly, for several minutes until thickened.

Immediately spread the hot raspberry custard over the cooled sponge and leave to cool completely.

Ingredients for the whipped cream layer:

• 750 ml double cream, chilled
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar

You’ll also need:

• 100 g petit beurre biscuits
• 200 g fresh raspberries, for decoration

Whip the cream with the icing sugar until stiff peaks form. Reserve about 1 cup of the whipped cream for decorating.

Spread the remaining whipped cream evenly over the cooled raspberry custard. Arrange the biscuits on top, leaving small gaps between them. Pipe the reserved whipped cream decoratively over the biscuits using a star nozzle and decorate with the fresh raspberries. Chill in the refrigerator, preferably overnight, so the biscuits soften.

Store the cake in the refrigerator.

Note: In very hot weather, you can stabilise the whipped cream by adding 3 teaspoons of powdered gelatine, or replace 250 ml of the cream with 250 g mascarpone for a firmer topping.

Enjoy!