Recipe: Lemon Curd and Raspberry Cream Naked Cake

Although Autumn has crept upon us, this week has been beautifully sunny. To celebrate the season's last salute to Summer, I set about baking this little naked cake. To me, nothing screams 'Summer!' more than raspberries and cream and, well, I just have a weakness for lemon curd! Put the two with cake and I must surely be onto a winner?

To recreate this little beauty, you will need the following...

For the lemon curd:
The grated rind and juice of one and a half lemons
50g butter
65g sugar
2 eggs

For the raspberry cream:
150ml double cream
5 or 6 raspberries
2tbsp icing sugar

For the Sponge:
100g butter
100g sugar
100g self raising flour
2 eggs
juice of one and a half lemons
1tsp baking powder

I always start by making the lemon curd. This is very simple. All you have to do is whisk up your two eggs in a bowl with your lemon juice and rind. Then pour this over your butter (cut into little bits) and and sugar which should be in a heat proof bowl. Place your bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir together the mixture until the butter melts. Continue to stir until the mixture starts to thicken which should take around 7mins. Once it has thickened, take it off the heat and let it cool- it should thicken more as it gets cooler. Once it is cold, you will have a tangy lemon curd, ready to be used on your cake. (And don't worry! You should have a plenty extra left over as well!)

Next, the cake. This is a super easy no fuss 'all in' recipe which my family has championed since before I could reach the mixer. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees and then simply bung all your cake ingredients into a bowl and whisk. Once you have a fluffy mixture, separate it out into two well greased cake tins- the ones I used were fairly small and shallow, with a roughly 6inch diameter. Then, pop your tins into the oven and let them cook for about 25-30mins, until golden brown. As soon as they're done, upturn your cakes onto a wire rack and leave them to fully cool.
N.B. you could also use one deeper cake tin and cut this in half once it's cool, although personally I never manage to cut it straight! If you do this, you will also need to adjust the cooking time appropriately. 

While the cakes are cooking and cooling, take the time to create your cream filling. Simply pour your double cream into a mixing bowl, add two tablespoons of icing sugar and your raspberries. Then, beat hard until the cream thickens to make stiff peeks. This can really take some work if you're doing it by hand but the end cake is definitely worth it!

Once you have your cakes, your cream and your curd, it's just a simple matter of assembling your cake! Take one cake and smear one face with lemon curd and do the same to the other cake, just with the cream. Sandwich together and vôlá, you are done! I used a sieve to dust mine with a little extra icing sugar and stuck on some raspberries and blueberries with some icing paste (icing sugar and a couple of drops of water, mixed to a thick paste) to make it a bit prettier.

I have to say, personally I think this cake is one of the most elegant and tasty things to come out of my kitchen. One mouthful and you can practically taste the summer sun! What do you guys think?

Lemon Curd Puffs

If I ever need to placate my mother, I make her a zesty jar of lemon curd. It's zingy yumminess is lovely on toast, with a croissant, or even better, inside a fluffy puff pastry! So here's a simple recipe so you can make these tasty pastries.

Ingredients:
3 lemons
100g butter
200g caster sugar
3 eggs
ready made puff pastry
a sprinkle of brown sugar

To start, whisk the three eggs up in a heat resistant bowl. Add the sugar and butter. Then juice your lemons. Sneaky trick for this- if you put them in the microwave first for 30 seconds, you'll get twice as much juice out of them. (Since my student house microwave is broken at the moment, we boiled ours in some hot water to heat them up!) Pop the lemon juice in with the other ingredients and float the bowl on top of a sauce pan filled with water.

Simmer the water while stirring the ingredients until the butter melts and the mixture starts to thicken- this should take around 10-15 minutes. Leave it to cool and then pour some into a jar. Remember to leave enough to fill your puffs (and don't forget to lick the spoon)!

We made some hot chocolate while we stirred the curd- the lack of a microwave is killing me!

Next, take your pastry. If you're lucky enough to get your hands on some ready rolled stuff (super easy!) then you're ready to go. If not, roll out your pastry so that it's no thicker than about half a centimeter. Then divide the pastry into equal sized squares (mine were about 10cm wide) and place them on tray lined with baking parchment.

Place a blob of your fresh lemon curd into the middle of the pastry squares and fold them up so they cover the blob. Sprinkle a pinch of brown sugar over the pastry and place the tray in the oven. Mine went in for about 20mins at 200°  but the pastry packet should give you an idea how long yours might take. If not, just look for when your pastry has ballooned.

There we are, delicious pastry puffs. I think they taste best straight from the oven (but be careful, they're pretty hot!)

Yum!