Aunt Margarets Lemon Cream Spongecake Recipes

LEMON SPONGE CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C or 350°F and grease two 8-inch cake pans.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Mix in the eggs one at a time followed by the lemon zest, lemon juice, and milk.
• Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined.
• Split the batter between 2 greased 8 inch round pans, and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
• Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
• Place one layer of the cooled cake on a cake plate. Cover with the sliced strawberries.
• To make the cream, add all of the remaining ingredients into a food processor or mixer. Whip until thick (You'll know it's ready to use when you run a spoon through it and it doesn't collapse into the crevice).
• Cover the layer of strawberries with the cream, place the second layer on top of the cream and dust with powdered sugar and decorate with whole strawberries before serving.

EASY LEMON CAKE (ALL-IN-ONE-LEMON-SPONGE)

Steps:

• Preheat your oven to 160ºC/140ºC fan.Line your baking tins (I use 2 x 20cm round sandwich tins) with baking parchment or reusable baking liners.
• Finely grate the zest of two lemons.
• Sift the self-raising flour (225g) and baking powder (2 tsp) into a large bowl.
• Add the remaining ingredients (4 medium eggs, 225g soft margarine or butter, 225g caster sugar, grated lemon zest and 2 tsp milk) and beat (with an electric mixer on a slow speed or by hand) until combined. Make sure that there are no small lumps of butter/margarine in your mixture. If there are, beat for a little longer until the mixture is smooth.
• Split the mixture equally between the pre-prepared tins. Use the back of a spoon to spread the mixture evenly in the tins.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes. To check if the cake is cooked insert a skewer into the centre and if it comes out clean the cake is ready.
• Leave the cake to cool in the tins for about 10 minutes. Remove them from the tins and then move them to a wire rack to cool completely - Make sure the cake has cooled completely before decorating.

LEMON CAKE - WITH A SECRET FLUFFY LEMON FROSTING

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (160°C fan) for 20 minutes before starting the batter (Note 9). Place shelf in the middle of the oven.
• Cake pans: Grease 3 x 20cm / 8" cake pans with butter, then line with parchment / baking paper. (Note 10 more pan sizes) Best to use cake pan without loose base, if you can.
• Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
• Beat eggs for 30 seconds on speed 6 of a Stand Mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, or hand beater.
• With the beater still going, pour the sugar in over 45 seconds.
• Then beat for 7 minutes on speed 8, or until tripled in volume and white.
• Heat Milk-Butter: While egg is beating, place butter and milk in a heatproof jug and microwave 2 minutes on high to melt butter (or use stove). Do not let milk bubble and boil (foam is ok). If you do this ahead, cover and keep hot while beating eggs.
• Gently add flour: When the egg is whipped, scatter 1/3 flour across surface, then beat on Speed 1 for 5 seconds. Add half remaining flour, then mix on Speed 1 for 5 sec. Add remaining flour, then mix on Speed 1 for 5 - 10 sec until the flour is just mixed in. Once you can't see flour, stop straight away.
• Lighten hot milk with some Egg Batter: Pour hot milk, vanilla, lemon juice and zest and oil into the now empty flour bowl. Add about 1 1/2 cups (2 ladles or so) of the Egg Batter into the Milk-Butter (don't need to be 100% accurate with amount). Use a whisk to mix until smooth - you can be vigorous here. Will look foamy.
• Slowly add milk: Turn beater back on Speed 1 then pour the Milk mixture into the Egg Batter over 15 seconds, then turn beater off.
• Scrape and final mix: Scrape down sides and base of bowl. Beat on Speed 1 for 10 seconds - batter should now be smooth and pourable.
• Pour batter into pans.
• Knock out bubbles: Bang each cake pan on the counter 3 times to knock out big bubbles (Note 10 for why)
• Bake 23 minutes or until golden and toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean.
• Remove from oven. Cool in cake pans for 15 minutes, then gently turn out onto cooling racks. If using as layer cakes, cool upside down - slight dome will flatten perfectly. Level cake = neat layers.
• Frost with provided Lemon Frosting, or Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting from this Lemon Blueberry Layer Cake recipe.
• Thickening roux: Place flour and sugar in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds.
• Add milk: While whisking constantly, slowly pour the milk in (this ensure it's lump free). As the milk gets hotter, it will start to thicken - stir constantly so the base doesn't catch.
• Thicken roux: Cook until the mixture thickens in a thick, dolloping custard - see video for texture. (Note 13 tip)
• Cool: Remove from heat and scrape into a bowl. Cover with cling wrap, pressing down onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Cool completely (20 min counter then 30 min fridge), but do not let it get fridge cold. (Note 14) It will firm into a very thick paste.
• FROSTING - cream butter: Beat butter with either a handheld beater or stand mixer (with whisk attachment) for 3 minutes until it's smooth and changes from yellow to very pale yellow, almost white.
• FROSTING - add roux: While beating on speed 5, add the roux one heaped tablespoon at a time. Take about 1 minute to add it all. Once all added, add lemon zest and juice, then whip for 2 minutes until you can see that it is stiff enough to hold peaks liek whipped cream. Do not whip more than 4 to 5 minutes (this will activate starch and make it sticky).
• Flip a cake layer upside down (for level surface). Spread with 3 - 4mm / 0.12 - 0.16" frosting. Top with another upside cake layer, spread with ore frosting. Cover with final cake layer then use remaining frosting to cover top and sides.

AUNT MARGARET'S LEMON CREAM SPONGECAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350°F. and grease and flour a 7- to 8-inch round cake pan, knocking out excess flour.
• In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar and eggs until thick and pale and beat in vanilla. Into a small bowl sift together flour and cornstarch and fold into egg mixture. Gently fold in butter until combined well.
• Pour batter into cake pan and bake in middle of oven 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a rack 10 minutes and invert onto rack to cool completely.
• With a serrated knife halve cake horizontally and spread bottom layer with lemon curd. Beat cream with confectioners' sugar until it just holds stiff peaks and spread on top of lemon curd. Top cream with remaining cake layer and sprinkle top of cake with remaining tablespoon granulated sugar.