Summer is still keeping us waiting this year and the average temperatures last month have been at a record low. Now, that is not really something to celebrate and as I can't escape to a hot and tropical place to soak up the sunshine I have resorted to the second best thing to lift my spirits and that is baking. Lemons shout summer like nothing else and in German we have a saying: "Sauer macht lustig", what means something like sour makes funny. It doesn't translate that well but you should get the idea. Might be the funny faces we make when we eat something sour.
The base of the cake is a lemon sponge, filled with my tart homemade lemon curd and then decorated with a whipped cream and cream cheese icing. You will find a great tutorial about how to pipe the roses on this wonderful website here and there's lots more inspiration there, so go and pay Amanda's blog 'I am Baker' a visit. And now off to eating some more lemons. Summer, here I come!
LEMON CURD SPONGE CAKE
for the sponge
200ml vegetable oil
250g sugar
4 large eggs
400g flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 lemon (juice and zest)
pinch of salt
for the lemon curd
4 unwaxed lemons (juice and zest)
4 large eggs
350g caster sugar
250g butter
for the icing
200ml whipping cream or double cream
200g cream cheese
4 tbsp caster sugar
3 tbsp lemon curd
yellow food colouring
Preheat oven to 175-195°C. Mix the oil and sugar, add the eggs, salt, lemon juice and zest. Mix the baking powder and the flour and sift, gently adding to the mixture. Divide the mixture in half and pour into round baking tins. Bake for about 30 minutes and set aside to cool. In the meantime prepare the lemon curd. In a medium pan whisk the eggs and add the lemon juice and zest, sugar and small cubes of the butter. Gently bring to the boil over medium heat and continue to stir until the mixture thickens. Continue stirring and simmer for another minute and take of the heat. Pour into sterilised jars and leave some for the cake. Spread between the two layers of sponge and stack. To make the icing whip the double cream until it stiff. Add the sugar and cream cheese and blend. Cover the layered cake with a thin coating of the icing to seal and place in the fridge. Take about half of the rest of the mixture and fold in the lemon curd and food colouring. Spoon into a piping bag, alternating yellow and white icing. Place in the fridge for about 15 minutes as the yellow mix will be a bit runny still. With a large nozzle pipe roses all along the cake and place in the fridge before serving.
