LEMON CAKE
Lemon, lemon and more lemon. For those who love lemon, this cake is for you. I made it for a friend’s 60th birthday last spring and he loved it. I prepared everything but the whip cream icing at home, and travelled out the Kimberley, where the party was. It took about half an hour to assemble there. It sat for a few hours in the frig to set before we put the candles on and ate it. It was great.
LEMON CAKE
Ingredients
- 1 box lemon cake mix
- 1 cup buttermilk (or a bit of vinegar in whole milk)
- 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
- 3 eggs
- Mix all ingredients on low for 30 seconds, then 2 minutes on medium. Pour into 3 – 9 inch layer pans, greased. Bake at 350 for about 24 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Remove from pan after 10 minutes.
- Wrap and freeze if making ahead.
- You can make this a couple of days ahead and store in the frig. Makes about 1 ½ cups.
- 5 large egg yolks, strained
- Zest of 1 ½ lemons (minus the 1 tsp for the cake)
- 1/3 cup of lemon juice (1 ½ lemons)
- 6 tbsp of sugar
- 1/3 cup of butter, cold, cut into pieces
- Combine yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, and sugar in a small saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set over medium heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir sides and bottom of pan. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat back of wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes.
- Remove saucepan from heat. Add butter, one piece at a time, stirring with the wooden spoon until consistency is smooth.
- Transfer mixture to a medium bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; wrap tightly. Let cool; refrigerate until firm and chilled, at least 1 hour.
- This can be made ahead and stored in frig till ready to use.
- Make according to instruction on box with whole milk. Use a bit less milk than instructed. You want the pudding very thick.
- 2 cups of whipping cream
- Whip the whipping cream, add just a bit of icing sugar and vanilla.
- When decorating a cake like this, I always start by putting wax paper strips between the bottom layer of the cake and the cake dish. Once the cake is finished you can gently pull the wax paper out (don’t put one full sheet down, only the outer edges should be covered up) and your cake plate will stay clean.
- Assemble the layers with the lemon curd in the middle layer and the lemon pudding on the first and third layers. You will still have lots of lemon pudding left (or you should). Now ice the outside of the whole cake with the lemon pudding you have left. No it does not look pretty, but that’s okay. You are going to cover it up. This is about flavor. Now using the whip cream icing, cover the entire cake.
- Finishing touches are as you like. Toasted coconut on top is great.
- If you make the cake ahead and freeze it, put it together while the cake is still frozen. It will set very fast.
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This shows the lemon pudding layer on the cake.