Thank you to Karen Burns-Booth from Lavender Lovage for this wonderful recipe. A beautiful spring show-stopper gateau-type cake that uses seasonal elderflower cordial and lemon curd; the base cake mixture is a Victoria Sandwich, a British classic that works well with all of the other British ingredients and preserves.
Ingredients
Cake
- 4 large eggs, weighed in their shells
- butter or soft margarine ~ same weight as the eggs
- caster sugar/super fine sugar ~ same weight as the eggs
- self-rising flour~ same weight as the eggs
Filling
- 1 x 250g jar Lemon curd
- 50g caster sugar
- 1 punnet raspberries
- 250ml thick cream
Drizzle icing
- 150g icing sugar
- 5 to 7 tablespoons elderflower cordial
- Thick Cream
Decoration
- Crystallised primroses (or edible flowers of your choice)
Note
The measurements for this recipe are equal amounts of sugar, flour and fat to the weight of the eggs; therefore, weigh the eggs first – if the eggs weigh 8 ounces (225g), you will use 8 ounces (225g) of sugar, 8 ounces (225g) of butter or margarine and 8 ounces (225g) of flour. If the eggs weigh 6 ounces (170g), all the other ingredients will be 6 ounces (170g) – easy!
Method
- Cake: Pre-heat oven to Gas 4, 160C (fan oven), 180C or 350F: grease and base line the bottom of 2 x 8” (20cm) sandwich tins – cake tins.
- Cream margarine or butter together with the sugar, until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs and then add them to the mixture, gradually and beating well after each addition. Sieve the flour and fold into the mixture with a metal spoon.
- Divide equally between the 2 prepared tins and bake for 25 minutes in the middle of the oven. Remove and allow to cool for 1-2 minutes.
- Assembling the cake: Remove from the tins and allow to cool completely on a wire rack; when cool, carefully slice through each cake with a bread knife to give you 4 x cakes.
- Place the first cake layer on a cake stand and spoon lemon curd over the cake before adding some of the raspberries and then the cream, leaving the top cake free of lemon curd and raspberries.
- Drizzle Icing: Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and add the elderflower cordial gradually until you have a thick paste, add cream – spoon this over the top of the cake and allow it to drizzle down the sides of the cake.
- Decorate with the crystallised primroses or edible flowers of your choice