I made a luscious lemon cake this week for my mother in-law’s birthday.

Lemon cake is perfect for those warm summer days, with it’s light, zingy taste combined with a delicious lemony buttercream.

This luscious lemon cake recipe is adapted from Mich Turner’s Cake Masterclass Book.

The cake recipe is the same, except I used large eggs instead of medium (only because I always buy large eggs).  I’ve also adapted the syrup glaze and lemon butter cream recipe to suit my taste which is listed in the recipe below.

The recipe is for a 15cm (6inch) round cake. This will generally serve 8-10 average sized cake slices, and is perfect for a small family tea party.

Recipe

Unsalted butter                                175g (6oz)

Golden caster sugar                        175g (6oz)

Self raising Flour                             175g (6oz)

Eggs, medium & beaten                 3

Baking powder                                 1tsp

Grated lemon zest                           2 lemons

Vanilla extract                                  1 tsp

Milk                                                     5 tbsp

For the lemon syrup

Lemon juice                                      2 lemons

Granulated sugar                           50g (2oz)

For the lemon butter cream

Unsalted butter, softened                150g  (5 1/2 oz)

Icing sugar                                             300g (10 1/2 oz)

Vanilla extract                                      1tsp

Lemon curd                                          150g (5 1/2 oz)

 

1/ Ensure all your ingredients are at room temperature.

2/ Pre-heat the oven to 160C fan/180C Convectional/Gas Mark

3/ Grease and line a 6 inch round tin.

4/ Beat the butter and sugar with an electric or standing mixer until light and fluffy.

5/ Now add the eggs and flour, then the zest, extract, milk and finally the baking powder.

6/ Transfer the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 55 minutes, or insert a skewer in the centre of the cake until it comes out clean.

7/ To make the syrup glaze, place the lemon juice and granulated sugar in a bowl, mix and then leave the sugar to dissolve.

8/ To make the lemon butter cream, beat the unsalted butter with a whisk or mixer. Gradually add the icing sugar, until combined. Beat until light and fluffy.  Add the extract and finally the lemon curd. Beat until mixed together.

9/ When the cake is baked, remove from the oven and use a skewer to spike holes all over the cake. The holes must reach to the bottom of
the cake.

10/ Pour over the lemon syrup glaze over the holes, and leave until the cake has absorbed the syrup and has cooled down.

Note: I used about ¾ of the glaze as I thought it may make the cake too wet.

11/ Once cooled, turn the cake out onto a wire rack. Cut into three layers using a serrated knife.

12/ Fill the layers with the lemon butter cream, and finish with a dusting of icing sugar on top.

Note: This cake can settle and sink slightly and Mich mentions this in her recipe. You can dowel the cake if you’re stacking this cake with other tiers.

If you’re making a single cake, I suggest you fill the layers as close as possible to serving the cake.

Ensure the cake is cool before filling with butter cream, as this will melt the filling and make the layers uneven.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Tags: Lemon butter cream, Lemon cake, lemon drizzle cake, Recipe

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2012 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Baking Recipes, Cakes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.