This is a wonderful cake to surprise anyone, especially someone special for Mothers Day. Let us also celebrate those mothers who for what ever reason, are no longer with us, I’m sure they would want us to celebrate their lives and what they meant to us. This wonderfully moist cake can of course be used as a celebration cake any time of the year.

Otherwise known as a Neapolitan Cake, I have added into this my own gluten free twists and you can of course decorate this in what ever way takes your fancy. I used some of the freeze-dried strawberries (I got mine from Sainsbury’s) I used in the cake and some rather lush Godiva Dark Chocolate Hearts from their ‘Masterpiece’ range…. yum. Despite saying ‘may contain’, use your own dietary requirements to include or not. Noah won’t eat them – so his mum will love them, I’m sure.

You’ll need 3 x 7″ cake tins with loose bases, lined and preheat the oven to Gas 4, 170c, 160c fan. If you only have 2 cake tins (as I have) make and bake the vanilla and strawberry cakes first, then once one of these at least, has cooled. Remove it from the tin, place the cake on a wire rack, then make and bake the chocolate cake.

I found that if you make them in vanilla, strawberry and then chocolate order, you can get away with using only one mixing bowl without having to wash it up between batters.

The batter recipes and method are all relatively the same;

For the vanilla cake batter;

• 2 eggs, broken into the mixing bowl
• 90g caster sugar
• 50g vegetable oil
• 50g melted butter
• 110g gluten free self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the strawberry cake batter;

• 2 eggs
• 90g caster sugar
• 50g vegetable oil
• 50g meted butter
• 110g self raising flour
• 1 drop of strawberry flavouring
• 2 tablespoons of freeze-dried strawberry pieces

For the chocolate/mocha cake batter;

• 2 eggs
• 90g caster sugar
• 50g vegetable oil
• 50g melted butter
• 1 tsp dried instant coffee, dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water (cool)
• 20g cocoa
• 90g gluten free self raising flour
• 1/3 teaspoon of baking powder
• 30g sour cream

For each individual batter, put all of the ingredients into a bowl and using a hand-held whisk, beat until light and fluffy – 5/6 minutes. Then pour each flavour batter into its own cake tin and bake for 25 – 30 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave them to cool.

For the filling and the buttercream;

• 1 jar of strawberry jam – the filling
• 40ml vodka (optional – I used Black Cow Vodka)
• 200g very sift butter
• 400g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• splash of milk

Once the cakes have cooled, slice each cake horizontally in half.

Mix the jam with the vodka (optional)

In order to then build the cake place one half of the chocolate cake on you cake plate, spread with jam, then place the other half of the chocolate cake on top.  Spread jam on top of this, add a slice of the strawberry cake and jam mix, then top with the other strawberry cake, then jam and then repeat with the vanilla cake. Don’t put jam on the top vanilla cake.

To make the buttercream beat the soft butter until light and fluffy using your hand-held whisk, or table top mixer. Pour in the icing sugar, essence, and milk stir in, using a spoon to avoid the dust cloud, then finish off by beating the mix for another 4/5 minutes until the mix is smooth and well combined.

Spread a small amount (roughly a third) of the buttercream all over the cake to seal in the cake crumb and place in the fridge to firm up – at least an hour – then finish off smoothing with the rest of the buttercream to create the all over smooth finish.

To finish off, decorate with your own choice of confectionary.