Lovely Lemon Layer Cake

Last weekend was a busy one! I baked a whole load of my lovely lemony cupcakes along with a lovely lemon layer cake for my Mother-in-law's Birthday celebrations.

I whipped up some of Delia's lemon curd for the filling. It tastes much better than shop-bought and I have two jars left over to make yet more lemony delights over the next few weeks! I also made some small roses for decoration.

Everything survived the car journey and the Birthday girl loved her cakes. If you'd like to make a lovely lemon layer cake, here's my recipe:

Lovely Lemon Layer Cake

200g unsalted butter, softened

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

200g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

zest of 2 lemons

1 tsp lemon extract

1 tbsp ground almonds

For the filling:

lemon curd

Lemony icing:

100g unsalted butter, softened

350-400g icing sugar

1-2 tsp lemon extract

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

few drops yellow food colouring
sugar flowers

1. Grease and line two round 20cm sandwich tins, and preheat your oven to 190 degrees or 170 for fan ovens.
2. Use an electric mixer to beat together all the cake ingredients until smooth and creamy.
3. Divide the mixture between the two tins evenly and bake in the centre of the oven for 20-30 minutes.
4. To make the lemony icing beat the butter for a minute. Gradually add the icing sugar and continue to beat. Add the lemon extract, juice and a little yellow food colouring. Beat again until smooth and creamy.
5. Once the cakes have cooled slice each of them so you have four layers of cake. Spread lemon curd and/or lemony icing between each layer and slather the outside with icing.
6. Prettify with a few sugar flowers!

Feltie Friday

Babushka! Another lovely from Felties by Nelly Pailloux. Happy Friday!

Mini Schokogugelhupf (Austrian Chocolate Cake)

A gugelhupf is an Austrian ring-shaped tea time cake. I've been wanting to bake a schokogugelhupf (all together now - shock-o-google-hoff!) ever since I saw the Hairy Bikers make one in a car park in Austria, high up on the Glossglockner High Alpine Road, during their mammoth Bakeation. When I popped into Lakeland and came across these silicone mini bund moulds I knew just what to make in them - mini schokogugelhupf of course! I adapted the Hairy Bikers' recipe for schokogugelhupf to make a smaller quantity as I only had 8 moulds.

Mini Schokogugelhupf (makes 8)

75g butter, plus extra for greasing

75g dark chocolate

25g ground almonds, plus extra for moulds

75g icing sugar

2 eggs, separated

65g self raising flour

¼ tsp baking powder

For the icing:

65g dark chocolate

20g butter

½ tbsp golden syrup

1. First of all grease the moulds with butter and coat with ground almonds. Then melt the chocolate and leave to cool for 15-20 minutes.
2. Preheat your oven to 190°C (170°C fan).
3. Cream the butter and icing sugar until light and smooth. Beat in the egg yolks and then the cooled chocolate, ground almonds, flour and baking powder.
4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Then, using a metal spoon, carefully stir into the chocolate mixture.

5. Spoon into the prepared moulds and bake for 12-15 minutes.

6. For the icing melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup and leave to cool for around 10 minutes until it has thickened slightly. Spoon on the cooled cakes.

Viennese Whirls

Viennese whirls are now offically my favourite biscuits. I think of them as a clever combination of shortbread and butterfly fairy cakes - rich buttery biscuits with a lovely light texture sandwiched together with raspberry jam and buttercream. Best of all, they're dead easy to make!

Viennese Whirls (makes 10)

125g unsalted butter, softened

25g icing sugar

25g cornflour

125g plain flour

couple drops vanilla extract

For the filling:

50g unsalted butter, softened

100g icing sugar

couple drops vanilla extract

5 tsp raspberry jam

1. Pre heat oven to 190° (fan 170°) and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Put the butter, icing sugar, cornflour, plain flour and vanilla extract into a food processor and pulse until you have a smooth mixture.

  

3. Pop it into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe 20 whirls around 4-5cm in size.

4. Bake for 10-14 minutes until they start to turn a light golden colour.

5. To make the filling beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread half a teaspoon or so of jam onto half of the biscuits and pipe or spread buttercream onto the other half. Gently press together and finish with a light dusting of icing sugar.

Crochet Daisy Cushion

This week I finally finished my crocheted cushion cover. If you follow me on Instagram you'll know I've been working on this for a fair few weeks now. Well, here it is...

I love the pretty little daisy granny squares and how they've brightened up the living room. I found some great instructions for making them here on Bunny Mummy. They're dead easy to make and - I'm sure my fellow crochet lovers will agree - super addictive!

I made 50 daisy grannies in total, 25 for each side of the cushion. I joined them together with an invisible stitch (see this helpful tutorial) and added a border before stitching around the sides. My cushion is now sitting pretty on the sofa.

Pink Raspberry Spice Cake

Last week I made a special cake for a very special lady. Mr Makes' Nan turned 98! She is a truly amazing woman and she deserved an amazing cake. I pinned this Raspberry Spice Cake a while back. Oh yes! It has SIX layers of cake, spiced with cinnamon, ginger and mixed spice (I skipped the cloves), sandwiched together with Tiptree raspberry jam, and covered with creamy cream cheese icing. I left my raspberries in the fridge at home (ooops!), but luckily I had some bright candles and pink sugar hearts to hand.

I tinted my sponge pink for an extra wow factor! I was going for pink ombre, but didn't quite pull it off and ended up with just pink! In case the trend has passed you by, ombre is a french word meaning shaded and ombre cake has layers tinted to go from light to dark.

This is one of the most delicious cakes I've made (even if I say so myself!). It received great reviews and I will most definitely be making again. The spice isn't overpowering and goes oh so well with the jam and cream cheese icing. I must say that the BBCgoodfood recipe made too much icing - I used about half on the cake and the rest to ice 16 chocolate cupcakes! Here's my adapted recipe...

Pink Raspberry Spice Cake

250g unsalted butter, softened

450g plain flour

140g golden caster sugar

140g light soft brown sugar

5 large eggs

4 tbsp honey

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ginger

¼ tsp salt

4 tbsp buttermilk

pink food colouring

For the filling and icing:

200g good quality raspberry jam

120g unsalted butter

120g cream cheese

120g icing sugar

raspberries to decorate (don't leave them in the fridge like I did!) 

1. Preheat oven to 160° (140°fan). Grease and line 3 x 20cm tins.
2. Pop all your ingredients into a bowl and use an electric mixer to beat until smooth. 
3. If you want to attempt ombre you can divide your mixture and tint. I used pink food colour paste. 

4. Divide the mixture between the prepared tins and bake for 25-35 minutes (mine needed 35 minutes).
5. Cut each cake in half and spread raspberry jam between the layers. 
6. For the icing, use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar until smooth. 
7. Spread the icing all over. You can make it look pretty with some raspberries and a dusting of icing sugar.

Feltie Friday