Lemon Curd and Blueberry Cake

Seeing as its Christmas and all I decided to make a slightly more experimental cake than usual.

I had never made lemon curd before, and I'd never attempted any part of this recipe before so it's all a bit hit and miss!

The whole idea of the recipe was adapted from a recipe I saw on Poires au Chocolat, that she made for her mum's birthday, you can see the original recipe here. (admittedly I did also take inspiration for the decoration from her blog!). The cake is a Good Food recipe, the lemon curd is from James Martin's Deserts and the Blueberry compote is a bit of a mess! There are lots of parts to this recipe and it may seem like a lot of faff but its worth it!

I wasn't honestly too happy with the presentation of the cake. That always seems to be my problem, I have wild expectations of beautiful cakes and dinners but never seem to be able to carry through with the final presentation no matter how hard I try! The main problem I found was with icing the cake, because its so cold we have the heating on full in the house all the time and the icing kept melting and the cake slid all over the place! So I had to decorate it in stages in and out of the fridge!

Lemon Curd and Blueberry Cake
(adapted from Poires au chocolat)

Lemon Curd

Ingredients

125g Sugar

100g Unsalted Butter

4 eggs

2 Lemons, juice and Rind

Method

1. Mix the lemon rind with the sugar in a heavy based pan. In a bowl mix the eggs with the juice of the lemons.

2. Cut the butter into small cubes and mix with the other ingredients.

3. Place the pan on a low heat and mix intermittently making sure not to let the eggs scramble. Keep cooking the mixture until it resembles a thick custard.

Lemon Syrup

Ingredients

Rind of 1 lemon

200g sugar

200ml water

Method

1. Place the lemon rind, sugar and water together in a pan.

2. Heat the mixture till the sugar dissolves, then take off the heat and let the lemon infuse into the sugar syrup.
3. Leave some of this aside for the cream cheese frosting.

Blueberry Compote

Ingredients

1 small pack of blueberries

100g sugar

Method

1. Place the blueberries and sugar together in a pan.

2. Heat till the blueberries are softened and resemble a loose jam. Leave to cool until ready.

Cake

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
5 large eggs
85g plain flour
100g full-fat greek yogurt
250g self raising flour
3 tbsp milk


Method

1. Preheat oven to 160C/140C for fan ovens. Grease and fully line the tin. 
2. Mix the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. 
3. Beat in the yogurt, then sift the flours over the batter and fold in. When nearly done, add the milk. 
4. Spoon into a tin and bake for about 1 hour - 1 hr 20 or until risen, golden and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before spiking the cake all over and pouring some syrup over, letting it sink in as evenly as possible. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.

Cream Cheese Frosting


Ingredients


150g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
250g cream cheese
150g mascarpone
Some of the lemon syrup left aside


Method


1. Cream the butter and icing sugar together.
2. Once well mixed add the cream cheese and marscapone. Don't over mix it as this will cause the cream cheese to split.
3. Add the lemon syrup and mix. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or until ready to use.

Ps. Photographer de jour, aka my little sister, again was kind enough to photography everything for me!