The most complicated cake ever - Patience Cake!

I thought I'd completed a pretty big challenge when I finished my 52 week baking marathon earlier this year, but that seems like a walk in the park compared to this weekends creation! I first came across a Patience Cake on the blog Confections of a (Closet) Master Baker. It's written by Gesine Bullock-Prado who as well as being a whizz with all things sugar, also happens to be Sandra Bullock's sister! I remember being in awe of it, promising myself I would have a go at it at some point & with Mothers Day on Sunday I took the plunge...

It's an American recipe so I've converted the quantities from cups, I also changed the flavours from pomegranate & key lime to blueberry & vanilla. Have a look at the original blog post for the full method, I just wanted to share a few highlights of my experience. This is not a cake you can just 'knock up', it took me around 4 hours from start to finish, so you do need an awful lot of patience & when you read the ingredients list, your own chicken could also prove useful!

So deep breath, are you ready? Here goes....

First off you need to make the cakes, you need 2 layers of each flavour so you'll need double the quantities of ingredients listed here.

420g plain flour
300g caster sugar
8 eggs
150ml vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
4tsp baking powder

For the vanilla layers you'll also need 125ml milk & 125ml water mixed with the seeds from a vanilla pod.

Vanilla batter looking lovely & creamy

For the blueberry layer I made a puree by gently heating 250g blueberries in a pan with 1tbsp sugar & a dash of water until they mush down. Pass it through a sieve to get rid of the bits, which should give you around 150ml, then top it up to 250ml with milk. It was a beautiful purple colour, then I added it to the cake mix & this is what happened...

Cake mix the colour of cement...not good!


Rescued to something that looks edible with some red food colouring

So by this point I had 4 layers of sponge cake, 2 vanilla & 2 blueberry, I left them to cool while I got on with making an epic quantity of frosting! Ingredients are...

600g caster sugar
250ml water
15 egg whites
Pinch of salt
900g butter
Few drops of red food colouring




So if you've been counting so far, that's 2 x 8 eggs for each batch of cakes plus 15 egg whites for the frosting, a massive 31 eggs in total, hence the chicken comment!

By this point, I'll be honest it was starting to turn into a 'I'm losing Patience Cake!' But no turning back, had to push on to construction & I did pick up a really helpful hint on how to evenly slice a cake into layers. Use a ruler to measure up the cake & pop in a cocktail stick at regular intervals so you end up with something looking like a UFO. Guide your knife using the markers & you'll be amazed at how even they end up!

With each layer sliced into three, I had twelve layers in total. The top layers I left to nibble on as they were too uneven to use, then I picked the four neatest & sandwiched them together alternately using the frosting. The cake went into the fridge for about an hour to allow the frosting to set.


To get the puzzle effect I cut a crater out the middle, spread a thin layer of frosting inside the crater & over the top, added an extra layer to cover the hole, inverted the whole cake, inverted the chunk I'd taken out & squished it back in the hole. Sounds simple doesn't it, but by this point it had turned into the 'I don't have the Patience for this Cake!'

Anyway, I'd got this far, had to get to the end....final thing was to cover the rather bashed looking cake with the remaining frosting, which resulted in this!


I was frazzled & was now referring to it as 'this bl***y cake!' Anyway, I had a moment, drank a large glass of Rose & took another look at it. I was quite chuffed I'd done it! But I guess the final test was how it looked when I cut into it & most importantly how it tasted. So, did it look like Gesine's? No, but it didn't collapse into a heap of crumbs & I was quite pleased that I'd managed to create the general effect intended. It tasted nice, but if I'm honest considering the amount of time & ingredients that went into it I was expecting to be blown away. It's not as sweet as it looks, particularly the frosting which is a good thing, but I'm sorry to say I found it a bit on the bland side :-(

Anyway, mission accomplished, I have made a Patience Cake, it wasn't to my taste, but that's not to say you might love it! I'm going for a lie down to recover! Rebecca x