Eggless Neapolitan Cake

The first time I came across this neapolitan cake in Master chef Australia All Stars. But the cake was different from what I have prepared. It had the layers in the same cake and the icing was just sugar and lemon juice. When Swathi announced the Baking Partners challenge for this month I was so happy to see the Neapolitan cake which was one of the three recipes she provided. But the recipe had three separate cake layers sandwiched by layers of whipped cream. And I was shocked to see the number of egg whites used in the recipe which was 8. While converting a recipe to egg free recipe, I can manage up to 4 eggs. But this was too much for me and so I searched for an alternate recipe. There were so many recipes for cakes and I went for a simple recipe with 3 eggs. I used curd as the egg substitute for 2 eggs and milk vinegar mixture for 1 egg. The next problem I faced was I had only one loaf pan. But I need to bake three cakes at the same time. Swathi had given an idea to make to loafs using a square tin but I was a little afraid because the first time I tried this technique, it was a flop. But now I had no alternative. So I made it according to the plan and I got a slightly bigger strawberry cake and a smaller lemon cake. But it was not a great problem. I just trimmed the strawberry cake and my daughter was very eager to finish it off. Then came the whipping cream part. As we have serious power shut down issues, I had to plan the timing of baking and whipping the cream. II whipped the cream perfectly this time and then the assembling was so easy. As I couldn't lay my hands on sweetened coconut flakes, I used grated kopra/ Dry coconut. And then after refrigerating, I waited eagerly for my hubby and daughter to return to give me the result. Remark from hubby placed me on cloud nine. He told me that this is the best cake I have done so far. My daughter finished a whole slice and was so happy. I shared 2/3 rd of the cake with our friend as it a very large cake for a small family as ours. So at the end of the day I was so happy and I need to thank Swathi for making us try out this cake.

Recipe Adapted From Taste

Ingredients:

For The Cake Batter:
Butter-175gm /3/4 + 1/8 cup

Caster Sugar-250gm / 1 cup

Curd-1/2cup

White Vinegar-1tsp

Milk-1/2 cup + ¾ cup

Flour-300gm / 2 1/3 cups

Baking Powder-1tsp

Baking Soda-1 tsp

For The Layers:
Strawberry Milk Flavour essence- a few drops ( this gives both colour and flavour. But if you go with an essence then add a few drops of pink food colour to the batter)

Lemon Essence-1/2 tsp

Lemon Zest -½ tsp

Lemon Yellow Food Colour-a few drops

Vanilla Essence-1/2tsp

For The Icing:
Fresh Cream- 300gm

Icing Sugar-3-4 tbs

Grated Dry Coconut-2-3 tbs

Procedure:

Beat sugar and butter until fluffy.
Add curd and beat for a minute.
Mix ½ cup of milk and 1 tsp vinegar in a small bowl. It will curdle after mixing. Add it to the butter mixture. Beat until well combined. It may look curdled but it is perfectly fine.
Sieve together flour, baking powder and baking soda in a separate bowl.
Add the flour mixture and ¾ cup of milk alternately to the butter mixture and fold in gently.
Divide the batter into 3 equal portions.
To one add vanilla essence and mix.
To one add lemon yellow food colour, lemon essence and lemon zest and mix.
To the final portion add the strawberry essence and mix.
Pour into greased and dusted 7" loaf tins.
Preheat oven to 175C.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
Remove from oven and let it cool for 5 minutes in the pan.
Flip the pan on a wire rack and allow the cakes to cool completely.
In a clean large bowl, take fresh cream which has been chilled for minimum of 2 hours. Using a hand beater or a balloon whisk, beat the fresh cream until soft peaks form.
Add 3-4 tbs of icing sugar and whip until thick. Do not over beat the cream because you will end up with butter and buttermilk.
Sandwich the layers of cakes with the cream and a sprinkling of coconut.
Cover the cake with cream using a spatula. Create small waves using the spatula for a wavy finish and sprinkle coconut on top and chill for 1 hour before serving.

I placed a folded thick foil in the centre and cover it by baking sheet. I then greased the baking sheet and poured the two batters into the two portions created by the partition.