Luscious lemons and elderflowers give a beautiful flavour to this bake.
Forget all the naysayers and haters. I ruddy love a good royal wedding. While I'm too young to remember watching Princess Diana sauntering up the aisle in her bouffy-shouldered dress, I can recall almost every detail of Prince William and Kate Middleton's do.
That gorgeously elegant lacy gown. The kiss on the balcony (swoon). The cute way they tootled off in a vintage car at the end. What a dream.
My friends and I held a wedding bash on one of the town greens that time – and I may have even worn my (still dirty at the bottom) wedding dress for the occasion!
For this weekend I've rustled up a wedding-esque, un-iced cake layered with the same flavours as the Royals' will enjoy as they sit down (no sorry, they're having a stand-up party aren't they?) after the ceremony.
Now, I have never professed to be good at decorating cakes. I'm pretty pants at art, so I don't go in for making flowers and all that malarkey. I prefer to use fresh stems. The ones across this cake aren't edible apart from the violas, and have been wrapped at their ends in foil to prevent their sap leaking into the end result. If you have unsprayed roses, violas or any other edible flowers in your garden using them to finish a cake is such a lovely thing to do. And they cover a multitude of sins too.
Underneath a thin layer of elderflower buttercream here is a lemon and elderflower sponge, soaked in elderflower cordial and layered with tangy lemon curd. It's a fresh, zingy, tart, sweet, creamy cake that goes down rather nicely with a cup of Earl Grey tea – or a glass of bubbly.
So get baking and happy viewing this weekend!
Lemon and elderflower cake
(Makes a tall 20cm cake)
Ingredients
400g softened unsalted butter or sunflower spread
400g golden caster sugar
8 medium eggs
400g self-raising flour
2tsps baking powder
Zest 1 lemon
4tbsps elderflower cordial
Elderflower cordial to drizzle
For the filling
140g softened unsalted butter
280g icing sugar – sifted twice
1 jar lemon curd
4tbsps elderflower cordial
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190C and grease and line three loose-bottomed 20cm round cake tins.
Cream together the butter and sugar for the cake and add the lemon zest. Add the eggs, whisking them in one by one, adding a large spoonful of the flour between each egg to stop the mix curdling. Add the remaining flour, baking powder and cordial and beat until creamy.
Weigh the mixture and equally divide it between your three tins. Bake for 25 minutes until risen and lightly golden. While warm, spoon several spoonfuls of cordial over the top of each to soak and leave to cool.
While the cakes cool make the buttercream. Whisk together the butter, cordial and icing sugar until super smooth and creamy, but don't overbeat or it will split.
When the cakes are completely cool, trim the tops to make them level. Place one layer on your serving plate and spread thickly with lemon curd – staying 1cm away from the edge. Place another layer on top and fill with more curd and 2tbsps buttercream.
Place the final layer of cake on top and carefully spread the remainder of the buttercream around the top and sides.
Finish with decorations of your choice.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here