Lemon Cake w/ Lemon Curd and Mascarpone Whipped cream 🍋

If Summer was a cake, this would be it 🍋☀️✨It’s fluffy, tart, creamy and most importantly…not too sweet! Lemon sponge recipe is adapted from https://www.recipetineats.com/lemon-cake-with-lemon-frosting/

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

In a saucepan, whisk together all the lemon curd ingredients except butter.

Step 2

Heat gently over low heat, whisking continuously until the mixture thickens.

Step 3

Take the mixture off the heat and add in the salted butter. Whisk to combine.

Step 4

Strain the curd through a sieve, cover with glad wrap and transfer to the fridge to set.

Step 5

Preheat the oven to 175c.

Step 6

Grease and line the bottom and sides of 2 or 3 x 20cm/8" cake tins with baking paper.

Step 7

Whisk cake flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl and set aside

Step 8

In a medium-size bowl or pyrex jug, combine butter and milk. Set aside.

Step 9

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on high speed beat the eggs until frothy. Slowly add the caster sugar while beating and beat for around 7-10 minutes or until thick and glossy. When the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail of mixture that doesn't dissipate immediately.

Step 10

Switch the speed to low and continue beating for 1-2 minutes. This is to stablise the egg foam.

Step 11

Sift 1/3 of the dry mixture over the egg mixture. Fold gently with a rubber spatula to combine. Folding too aggressively here will result in a deflated cake as the air will be knocked out!

Step 12

When the dry ingredients are mostly combined, sift in the next 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Repeat until all the dry ingredients are folded into the batter. Note: It may seem like there's too much flour compared to the egg mixture, but be patient and keep folding gently as the ingredients will eventually combine!

Step 13

In the mean time, place the pyrex jug with butter and milk in the microwave and heat until the butter is melted and the mixture is warm. Note: we don't want to boil the milk, so heat just until the butter melts!

Step 14

To the butter/milk mixture, add the vanilla extract, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, lemon juice, and zest and combine. Note: make sure the butter and milk mixture is warm not boiling or the lemon juice will make the mixture split.

Step 15

Add a little more than a third of the batter to the wet mixture and combine with a spatula. This is to lighten up the wet mixture before folding it into the main batter so there's no need to be too gentle.

Step 16

Pour the wet mixture back into the rest of the batter and fold gently until just combined. Be sure not to overmix! The batter should be thin but slightly viscous. If the batter is too liquid, too much air has been knocked out during the folding process.

Step 17

Divide the batter between the cake tins evenly.

Step 18

Tap the cake tins a couple of times on the counter to burst any remaining bubbles and bake at 175c for 30-35 minutes if using 3 tins and 45-50 mins if using 2 tins. If a toothpick comes out clean, the cakes are done.

Step 19

Once out of the oven, tap the cake tins on the counter a couple of times to release the cake and flip onto a wire rack immediately to cool upside down.

Step 20

Using an electric mixer, whip the mascarpone and caster sugar together until combined. Stream in the thickened cream and beat on high speed until soft peaks form. Reserve about 1 cup of the non-flavoured whipped cream to pipe on top of the cake.

Step 21

Add the lemon curd and about 1-2 drops of yellow food colouring (optional) to the rest of the cream mixture. Beat until just combined. The cream should be thick and stable.

Step 22

Make sure the cakes are completely cool before decorating.

Step 23

Level the cakes with a serrated knife if there are any remaining domes after cooling the cakes upside down.

Step 24

Place a single layer of cake onto a cake turntable. Make sure the cake is centered. Top with the mascarpone whipped cream and spread the cream with an icing spatula or spoon. Make a little well in the middle of the cream, making sure the edges of the cream are high enough to prevent lemon curd from seeping out. Spoon about 1-2 tbsp of lemon curd into the middle. Repeat with the remaining cake layers.

Step 25

Top the assembled cake with the remaining mascarpone cream and smooth the top and sides. Use a spoon or spatula to create swirls in the cream.

Step 26

For decoration, fill a piping bag fitted with a star-shaped piping tip with the reserved cream. Pipe little mounds on top of the cake. Decorate with thin lemon slices and lemon thyme.