Lemon cake with blueberry compote and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

I just love all things lemon. Lemon cake, lemon water, lemon cheesecake, lemon macaron, lemon … well you get the drift. After saying that I need to share with you my recipe for lemon cake. This is really “just” a sponge cake but I add the zest of 2 lemons to the batter and I always soak the cake with lemon sugar syrup. Yummy!
Today I baked this cake with blueberry compote and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. I piped the cake to make it look like a rose. Here’s a fantastic tutorial on how to make this wonderful buttercream rose. Lemon cake with blueberry compote and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream - recipe www.alltsaett.comLemon cake with blueberry compote and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream - recipe www.alltsaett.comLemon cake with blueberry compote and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream - recipe www.alltsaett.com

 Now, to the recipes:

Lemon cake: 

  • 1 & 3/4 sticks salted butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 & 1/3 cups flour
  • 1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • Finely grated zest of 2 lemons (preferably organic and unwaxed)

Method: 

  • Heat the oven to 350°F. Butter (or oil) two 8-inch-round cake pans and line the bottoms and sides with parchment paper.
  • Place the butter, sugar and the zest of two lemons in the bowl of an electric mixer, and using the paddle, cream together until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
  • Beat the eggs lightly in another bowl and slowly add to the mix, while paddling on medium speed.
  • Once the eggs and the butter mixture are combined, mix in the flour at low speed.
  • Spread the batter evenly into the pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes.
  • Once the cake is baked, let it rest in the pans on a wire rack for 5 minutes.
    Prick the top of the cake with a wooden skewer and, using a pastry brush, soak it with the syrup. Once cool, remove the cake from the pan and cool on wire rack. This cake can rest over night, wrapped in plastic wrap.

Sugar lemon syrup: 

  • 5 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/3 cup sugar

Method: 

  • Place the juice and sugar in a deep saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.

Blueberry compote:

  • 500 gr frozen blueberries
  • 2 tbsp sugar

Method:

  • Place sugar and blueberries in a small saucepan and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes.  Remove from heat and chill until cold.

I used this recipe for the Swiss meringue buttercream (with the seeds out of a single vanilla pod). It’s a rather large recipe but we use a lot of the good stuff when piping this beautiful rose :).

Now to assembling the cake. Position your first layer on the cake stand. Start with the bottom layer. Create a dam or circle of icing just inside the edge of the cake. This will prevent any filling from seeping out when the next layer is added. Fill the center with the blueberry compote. Don’t let the filling rise higher than your dam. Spread a little extra buttercream over the blueberry filling. Place the other cake layer on top. Now we are ready to coat the cake in our luscious buttercream and pipe the rose.

Have fun and enjoy!

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