Fanta Cake

Happy New Year! There's been a whole lot of celebrating lately, with Xmas and new year, not to mention the fact that New Year's Eve is also my birthday. It's been fun times all round. I've had a pretty low key holiday season, it's been nice. I had a pretty rad fishing and camping trip planned, but the weather here has been too windy so we put our plans on the back burner and just spent our holiday time exploring our local scenery instead.

Walking up our local stream, wearing a birthday hat. Just 'coz I can.

Even though I had a chilled out NYE/birthday, there was one thing I knew I knew I could not miss out on. A birthday cake. I'm not one for presents or parties but cake and desserts...hell yeah bring it on. I decided to make my own cake using a recipe that a lovely german friend gave me. She had made it when she was here in nz and had to adapt it using nz ingredients, she ended up disliking the cake as it didn't taste how she'd expected. It was a bonus for my husband and me as she gave us the whole thing in disgust. Funny thing is we think the cake is amazingly yum. 

It's called a Fanta Cake and uses Fanta in the sponge cake. It's topped with a creamy mixture with sliced peaches folded in. I think this topping is where my friend had an issue. The original recipe uses an ingredient called Schmand, but we don't have this here and the closest substitutes are things like sour cream or crème fraîche. However, my friend used cream cheese which gave it quite a different flavour, we loved it, she didn't. We loved it because the topping ends up tasting like cheesecake, and there is mountains of it. The cake gets completely buried in it, it's complete overkill. So be warned, it's not like the original. If you've had an authentic Fanta Cake, you might love it or hate it. But if you've never tried it, then I hope you fall in love with this version, just like we did.

Fanta Cake

Making the cake...

4 eggs
250g granulated sugar
20g vanilla sugar (just use plain sugar if you don't have this, and add a splash of vanilla essence)
125ml oil
160ml Fanta (or other brand of orange flavoured soft drink)
250g self-raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius.
Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar until creamy.
Stir in the oil and Fanta.
Slowly add the flour and combine gently.
Pour into a 23 cm cake tin that has been greased or lined etc.
Bake for approx 30 minutes then leave to cool.

Making the Topping...

2 tins of sliced peaches (400g tins)
600ml cream
100g vanilla sugar (if you dont have this use caster sugar instead, add a splash of vanilla essence)
500g softened cream cheese (if you want to be authentic, use Schmand or sour cream or likewise)

Drain the peaches, set aside.
Beat the cream until it just starts to stiffen.
Mix in the vanilla sugar and cream cheese. Mix until well combined, no lumps.
Spread all over the cake, bury that sucker!
Leave to cool in the fridge and serve chilled.

Optional tip:  sprinkle with cinnamon powder before serving.