Raspberry cloud cake

The ideal summer cake. Raspberry cloud cake has a delicate shortbread base, with many raspberries in the raspberry jelly, delicious cream and a crunchy meringue with almonds sprinkled on it. This recipe for the cake was sent to me by Aleksandra (thank you so much!). The original cake reminded me of Pani Walewska cake – two shortbread biscuits baked with meringue and a layer of jam and cream between them. I didn’t want to copy the recipe, so I decided to make some changes; the most important one is baking meringue as a separate layer; thanks to this change, we get a fluffy layer of meringue on the cream layer. This cake can be baked throughout the year; you can successfully use frozen raspberries. 

Note: meringue is best baked the day before and stored in the oven until the next day. It can also be left at room temperature and covered with a kitchen towel. Shortbread can be prepared the day before; it can also be frozen.

Ingredients for the shortcrust pastry:

• 3 egg yolks from large eggs
• 30 g icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 150 g plain flour
• 100 g butter, cut into cubes

All ingredients should be chilled.

In a bowl, add sifted plain flour and butter. Mix until the mixture resembles a crumble. Add icing sugar, yolks, vanilla extract and baking powder, then knead very gently until the ingredients are combined and almost smooth (alternatively, you can use a food processor). Form it flat, wrap it in cling film and place it in the fridge for 60 minutes.

Prepare a rectangular baking tin measuring 23 x 33 cm. Grease with butter and cover with baking paper.

After removing it from the refrigerator, roll out the pastry and place it in a baking tin. Prick with a fork in several places and put it again in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Bake at 190 – 200ºC for 15 – 20 minutes or less, until golden. Remove from the oven and cool it down.

Ingredients for the jelly with raspberries:

• 600 g raspberries (fresh or frozen)
• 3 raspberry jelly packets (each for 500 ml of water)
• 1 litre of boiling water

Dissolve three raspberry jelly packets in 1 litre of boiling water. Cool, mix with raspberries. Let the jelly sit slightly in the fridge. Put the jelly on the shortcrust pastry, align and cool in the refrigerator.

Ingredients for the vanilla cream:

• 500 ml whipping cream 36%, chilled
• 250 g mascarpone cheese, chilled
• 3 Tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla paste or a seed of 1 vanilla pod

Place all ingredients in the bowl of the mixer and whip until stiff.

Ingredients for the meringue with almonds:

• 3 egg whites, at room temperature
• 150 g caster sugar
• 2 tsp potato starch
• 40 – 50 g almond flakes

Place the egg whites in a mixing bowl. Whisk egg whites with a mixer until they form stiff peaks, then whisk in caster sugar, 1 Tbsp at a time, gradually, until the sugar is mixed correctly and the meringue looks glossy. Finally, add the potato starch and whisk.

Prepare a rectangular baking tin measuring 23 x 33 cm and turn it upside down. Grease with butter, cover with baking paper and spread it evenly. Sprinkle with almond flakes.

Bake at 140°C for about 1 hour, then turn off the oven and let the meringue cool completely inside the oven. Let it cool.

Remove the cake from the refrigerator, spread the vanilla cream on the jelly, and align it. Put the cooled meringue layer on the top. Cool for 2 hours in the fridge. Cut and serve.

The raspberry cloud cake can be stored in the fridge for three days.

Enjoy!