Layered tropical fruit chiffon cake

What is the point of a chiffon cake when you can have a much richer buttery sponge which is full of flavour? Well, the chiffon cake on its own doesn't contain much flavour that's right, BUT, it is excellent a brining out other flavours. Any flavour from the fillings, whether it is cream, mousse or fruits, they won't have the flavours from the sponge to compete with. Also, because the fat ingredient is oil instead of butter, it remains moist in the fridge for 2-3 days and can be kept frozen much better than the traditional victorian sponge.

This particular cake consists of 2 separate sponges of different size. If you count each sponge is sliced into two for fillings in between, then it has 4 layers. But it looks like it has two, but call it what you want, 2 layers, 4 layers, what difference does it make?!

Ingredients for the sponge (enough for two sponges in 20cm tins. It may be easier to make one 20cm and the other slightly smaller, but if you have two tins of the same size, trim down one to make it smaller)

• 225g self raising flour
• 300g caster sugar
• yolks from 6 large eggs
• whites from 7 large eggs
• 2 lemons
• 120ml vegetable oil
• 1tbsp baking powder
• pinch of salt

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees C and grease 2x20cm (or 1x23cm and 1x18cm) baking tins, do NOT line with parchment paper
2. Sift self raising flour and 250g caster sugar together into a large bowl (This bowl will have to be very big, as you will be folding the egg whites in later)
3. Mix with baking powder, salt and finely grated lemon rind from 2 lemons until all the dry ingredients have been equally distributed
4. Add in vegetable oil, juice from 2 lemons and egg yolks and beat until well combined
5. Beat egg whites in a separate bowl, make sure the bowl is free from any grease, or it will reduce the volume that the egg whites can form. Beat until soft peaks and then add in the remaining 50g caster sugar, 1tbsp at a time until the egg whites have formed STIFF peaks
6. Add 1/3 of egg whites to cake mixture and gently fold it in, then add another 1/3 and fold and then the remaining 1/3 and fold. Make sure the egg whites and the cake mixture is well combined and there are no large areas of egg white on its own
7. Divide cake mix into the 2 baking tins and bake for 55-65 minutes
8. Test whether cake is cooked through with skewer, it should come out completely clean
9. Cool by turning the tin upside down for 1 hour
10. Slice each sponge into 2 layers so you can put filling in-between

Ingredients (mousseline filling)

• 300ml double cream
• 50g unsalted butter
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbsps corn flour 
• 250g melon chunks
• about a bowl of mango and pineapple chunks

1. Blend your melon chunks and put on low heat until it simmers
2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well mixed, smooth and silky
3. Beat in corn flour into the egg/sugar mixture until smooth
4. Pour 1 tbsp of simmering melon puree into the egg whilst beating the mixture continuously to prevent the eggs from cooking and forming lumps. Add another tbsp of melon puree and repeat the procedure two more times 
5. Pour all the egg/caster sugar/corn flour mixture into the melon puree and mix continuously until the mixture boils and keep stirring for 4-5 more minutes after that, the mixture should thicken considerably at this stage, it should be thick enough for you to pipe, or it will run off the cake!
6. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature
7. Spread just over half of the mousseline filling onto the bottom sponge
8. Chop mango and pineapple chunks into small cubes and layer half of it onto the mousseline filling
9. Whisk double cream until it forms stiff peaks using an electric whisk
10. Spread double cream ontop of the fruit and put on the second layer
11. Put 2 tbsp of mousseline filling ontop of the second layer and lay the 1st of the 2 smaller layers on it
12. Repeat the same filling step for the smaller sponge and put on the final layer
13. To decorate, I used leftover mousseline and whisked double cream and decorated with mango and pineapple chunks, but I'm sure you can be more creative than me, so decorate away!