You may have noticed here over at Live it. Love it. Make it, that we LOVE cake! There is never any reason not to have cake as far as we are concerned!
We have a few friends who make cupcakes and cakes as well, so it would be rude not to indulge! But today's beauty is all H and so of course there is a little difference than the norm of a Vanilla sponge with Jam - it wouldn't be H without it!
This is a Lemon and Vanilla sponge cake with butter cream and Lemon curd inside. It went down a storm at work as usual and managed to not even make it to the 10.30am tea break for some! There are some definite cake monsters at H's work! - you know who you are.
This is so simple to make and as you can see there are three cake layers to make it a mammoth cake as H felt that 2 layers just didn't look big enough - of course! Now, if you only want 2 layers, then just do 2 thirds of the mix. H's mum has been making this type of cake for years and its always in cookery books as a simple cake to be able to change up to whatever you want to make it into.
So to the Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/Gas Mark 4
For the cake
150g self raising flour
150g caster sugar
150g butter/margarine
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
a few drops vanilla essence
1/2 lemon juice
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl until light and fluffy. If the dough is too thick add a couple of teaspoons of warm water.
Split the mixture into 3 cake moulds or if using a tall cake tin, just do it in one go and cut the layers later. You can then see if you want 2 or 3 layers then.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Let cool down completely
For the Filling
One filling was just Lemon Curd from a Jar - I know I could have made my own, but sometimes life is just too short!
The other filling is a simple butter cream:
250g butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
600g Icing Sugar
2 tablespoons of milk
Mix the butter and icing sugar together - add the icing sugar slowly as otherwise you will end up with a sugar cloud!
Add the vanilla essence and if required the milk to the consistency you want.
When the cake layers have cooled completely, add the butter cream and lemon curd as you want it. H did the lower layer and top with the butter cream and then a middle layer of lemon curd. Yum!
Make it
H & Sammy
