Phew. It has been a while. These last few months have been quite tough for me – recent exams have meant an absence of baking for me. Then after the exams, I had my Easter holiday so last weekend was the first time in ages since I baked anything! Luckily, baking seems to be like riding a bike for me – although my electric mixer was a bit dusty from disuse, it felt good to be back at it, piping bag in one hand and camera in the other. Most of my flatmates were still back home for Easter, so last weekend I decided to make a little 6″ cake that reflected the springlike weather we’ve been having. Daffodils, primroses and even some brilliant pink tulips have all apparated in our backyard – it’s a beautiful, if accidental, garden.
This cake is very lemony. The icing has a generous amount of lemon curd in it and the juice of a full lemon. I really loved the blackberries with the lemon and I wish I could have afforded to buy more and cover the entire top of the cake. The berries cut the sweetness and tartness of the lemon a bit and balanced out the flavours. The cake itself is a good classic yellow cake, sturdy enough to not be overpowered by the strong icing. After a few days in the fridge, the edges were a bit dry, but on the first and second days it really was a lovely moist cake. But that shouldn’t be a worry because you won’t have any leftovers!
I used the petal technique to ice it, although you could very easily just spread the icing on with no extra decorating required. If you are interested in seeing how to do the petals, I have both a written and video tutorial on how to do it. You can find the blog post here and the YouTube video here.
Sadly with this warmer weather means I am ever closer to finals. I will try to post as much as I can before they start, but a few weeks before, my exam-time baking moratorium will have to take into effect. But until then, I will be busily baking!
Happy Baking!
Lemon Blackberry Cake
Makes one x 6″ cake, serves 8-10 people
Ingredients
- 175g unsalted butter
- 175g white sugar
- zest from 1 lemon
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 large eggs
- 175g self-raising flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 salt
- ~1/2 seedless raspberry jam
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 175C/350F. Butter and flour 2 x 6″ baking tins and line the bottoms with rounds of baking parchment.Â
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- Rub together the white sugar and lemon zest with a rubber spatula. Add the butter and cream together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, around 2-3 minutes.
- Add the eggs, one at a time. Mix well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Add the flour mixture and mix on medium-low for another minute or so, or until well mixed.
- Divide the batter equally between the two cake tins. Bake in preheated oven 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Cool on a wire rack completely before icing.
- Frost with lemon curd buttercream (recipe below). Top with blackberries (just the edges or the whole thing!)
Lemon Curd Buttercream
Ingredients
- 250g unsalted butter. softened
- 175g lemon curd
- juice from 1 lemon, strained
- 1 tbsp milk (optional)
- 500g icing sugar
Instructions
- Cream together the butter and lemon curd with an electric mixer on high until smooth, around 1-2 minutes. Try to get them as emulsified as possible, with not large chunks of butter.
- Gradually add the icing sugar with the electric mixer on low speed, adding the lemon juice as needed. If the icing is still too thick, add milk in teaspoons until the icing is the desired consistency.
- Once all the ingredients have been added, switch the mixer to high speed and beat until light and fluffy, around 30 seconds.
- Use immediately. Icing can either be spread on with a knife or piped on using a petal tip (see tutorials).
