Champagne Wedding Cake with Raspberry Filling

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Separate eggs, reserving whites and discarding all but one egg yolk. Set egg yolk aside. In a large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set aside. In a medium bowl stir to combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl beat butter and sugar together with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in the reserved egg yolk and the vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and Champagne to the butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition until just combined. Fold 1/2 of the beaten egg whites into the batter to lighten. Fold the remaining beaten egg whites into the batter. Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes. Loosen sides, remove from pans, and cool completely. To make the Raspberry filling, combine the raspberries, sugar, Champagne, and water in a small saucepan. Stir and heat over medium heat until mixture is bubbling. Strain raspberry mixture through a sieve into a bowl. Discard seeds. Pour strained raspberries back into the saucepan and heat until bubbling. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and just enough to make a slurry. Whisk cornstarch slurry into strained raspberries (add slurry slowly and if raspberries thicken up before all the slurry is gone, discard remaining slurry). Remove from heat and chill completely in refrigerator. Meanwhile, to make frosting, beat the margarine on high speed with an electric mixer for about 30 seconds. Beat in the powdered sugar until combined. Beat in the Champagne and vanilla. Beat in enough water to make frosting of spreading consistency. To assemble cake, spread Raspberry Filling in the center of one cake layer (leaving about 1/2 inch border around the edges uncovered). Top with the second cake layer. Frost the tops and sides of the cake with the Champagne Frosting. If desired, use a pastry bag to pipe remaining frosting in decorative designs on the tops and sides. *Tip: I use Earth Balance margarine because it is 100 calories per tablespoon just like butter and is meant for baking. Wedding Cake: To make this cake into a wedding cake, it was multiplied several times and baked in tiered cake pans (I did three layers for each "layer"). I then frosted it with the above frosting and coated with purchased fondant. I made the flowers from strips of fondant (rolled into roses) and painted them with different colors of luster dust. I stuck toothpicks in the end of the rose before they dried so they could easily be added to the cake. The final touch was filigree and other piping in Royal Icing (recipe not included).