I am thrilled to announce that my Royal Wedding Cake came runner up in the Good To Know Royal Wedding Bake Off! Read what they had to say about it and view the winner and other entrants by clicking here.
On that note, I am going to share the recipe for the top tier… a light lemon sponge with lemon curd buttercream.
You can bake this cake either in two tins or in one deep tin. Having tried it both ways, I find that two tins gives a much lighter and airier sponge.
Ingredients
for the sponge
175g unsalted butter, softened and diced into cubes
175g golden caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 lemon, zest and juice
for the lemon sugar syrup
juice of ½ lemon
25g golden caster sugar
25ml water
for the buttercream
40g unsalted butter, softened
125g sifted icing sugar
50g good quality British lemon curd such as English Provender or Duchy Originals
Method
- Preheat the oven to fan 170°C and grease and line two 6″ cake tins or one 6″ deep cake tin.
- Sift the flour and baking powder into the large bowl of a mixer.
- Add the diced butter, sugar and lemon zest.
- Start the mixer slowly and once the ingredients start to combine, slowly pour in the eggs.
- Once the mixture is evenly blended and smooth, stir through the lemon juice.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the two cake tins and bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until the cakes are well risen, springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. If baking in one tin, the cake will take 55 minutes to 1 hour.
- Leave the cakes in the tin to cool for 5 minutes before turning onto a cooling rack, removing the greaseproof paper and leaving to cool completely.
- Whilst the cake is cooling, make the lemon sugar syrup by putting the lemon juice, sugar and water in a small saucepan and gently bringing to the boil over a low heat. Once the the sugar has dissolved, remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.
- To make the buttercream simply cream together the butter, sifted icing sugar and lemon curd for 5 minutes until soft, pale and fluffy.
- Once the cake is cooled, arrange the sponges so that the two sides that are going to be sandwiched together are face up.
- Brush these sides with the lemon sugar syrup.
- Now spread the buttercream on the bottom half and sandwich the two halves together.
- Dust with icing sugar when ready to serve.
Your cake looks delicious. I made some lime curd recently and was wanting to use it as a cake filling, but it’s a bit too runny. Was wondering if it would work with buttercream, now I know. Thanks.
Lime curd would be delicious in a buttercream! You could even team it with a lemon sponge for a tangy lemon and lime cake…yummy!
Just made the curd buttercream – it’s soooo delicious. Why haven’t I ever come across this before I’m wondering. I made it as a filling for a chocolate cake – of course!
Fab! What kind of chocolate cake did you pair it with? Have you got a pic you could post up on my facebook page for all to see?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Little-Bear-Cakery/170030899693399
I’ve just posted about the cake and posted a link on your facebook page.
If I wanted to increase the amount of buttercream to cover the whole of the cake how much would you use?
Thank you!
Hi Katy, apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I have only just seen your comment and realise I am probably a little late to answer your question by now. Anyway, I would multiply the quantities by 3 to cover the whole cake. Apologies again! Happy baking! 🙂
Hi there,
I’m planning on making your cake the weekend and wondered if I was to layer the cake, would you put the lemon syrup on each layer? I am going to be covering the cake in fondant too.
Many thanks for your help.
Natalie
Hi Natalie,
I would recommend brushing all of the internal layers with the lemon syrup. i.e. the layers that will be in contact with the buttercream filling. If you are baking more than two layers to your cake then I would recommend increasing the amount of syrup that you make. Hope that helps! Happy baking! 🙂
Clare
I made some orange cupcakes earlier and wanted a lemon frosting to go with and came across this one. WOW! I turned my cupcakes into butterfly buns and put some lemon curd in first then the buttercream , sooooo yummy!! I’ll be using this recipe in future 😊