If you are a regular Cakeyboi reader you will know that the Eurovision Song Contest is a special time of year for me.
Much like someone may get excited about a Wimbledon final or a footie match, I get extremely het up for the yearly Grand Prix D'Chanson!
In it's 61st year now, my friends and I all gather for a Eurovision shindig, usually at my friend Ewan's. This year however, so we could show off our new abode, we held the Euro Pops Party.
We have a sweepie, all putting in 50p per country and everyone brings along food and drink from a participating country.
And I always make a cake - normally the flag of the host nation. Well, it was Sweden this year and Sweden only won a few years back when I made a Blue Velvet Cake for the occasion.
So, how could I up the ante this year? By not doing a traditional flag cake of course. Instead I made a white cake sponge (dying it luridly blue with blue extra food colouring) and sandwiching a lemon yellow cheesecake between the layers.
Sheer decadence, I was quite restrained on the outside and had a simple cream cheese and whipped cream frosting. I topped this with a few select coloured chocolate drops, topped with a Swedish flag and festivities began.
(I even made some savoury nibbles, which I thought were picturesque!)
It was a cracking show, the hosts Mans and Petra were hilarious and very, very talented. Then the results came in. It was a bit different this year in that the jury vote was shown first, then the public vote was added on at the end.
The UK were doing the best they'd done in years, until the telephone votes were added in and we plummeted to third last in the overall results. I wonder why the rest of Europe hates us so much?
Ukraine won (it was down to them and Russia at the end, who says it not political?!) and it was almost as if I had predicted the winning country through the colours of my cake. The Ukraine flag is below...
Not sure what I will do next year, but I think my experiment with blue extra was a one time thing(!).
There is no recipe as such for this cake - I used a simple white cake recipe I found on line, any would do. Just make sure it is 'blue extra' food colouring you use, as this gives the most intense colour, without too much needing added. I also used goat butter for this as it's very pale, almost white. And I used clear vanilla extract. This ensures that the batter stays a non-yellow color which can make the blue turn greeny/teal.
The cheesecake recipe can be found at a Recipe Girl. I just added lemon extract instead of vanilla and added the zest of half a lemon.
My recipe for cream cheese frosting can be found at my previous Swedish flag cake post.
Here's to next year's song contest and the UK not winning (again!).
