Lemon Curd Swiss Roll

The daffodils are starting to open and the evenings finally beginning to lengthen; I think that spring may have finally arrived. When I venture outdoors, I can hear the bleating of some of this year’s new-born lambs. It sounds clichéd but there is definitely an air of hope. I love this time of year and enthusiastically welcome the opportunity to cook dishes and prepare meals that reflect the freshness and vitality of the new season.

 

For me, there is something very spring-like about the taste of lemon and although lemons are available to buy all year round, they are at their peak, in terms of flavour, in late winter/early spring. I love the tangy freshness they impart to a whole range of dishes. I have spoken before about the seasoning properties of lemon juice and how a few squeezes can enliven the taste of many foods. I look upon lemons as an essential ingredient in the kitchen and always have a bowl-full of them to hand.
 

Given my great love for lemons, it is hardly surprising that I especially love lemon cakes and desserts. I regularly make lemon Victoria sponge cakes filled with homemade lemon curd and I am also partial to lemon mousses, soufflés, cheesecakes and of course lemon meringue pie. If the choice on a menu is between a lemon or chocolate dessert, I will always plump for the lemon option. Don’t misunderstand me… I also love anything that includes chocolate; it’s just that I prefer lemon.
 

This lemon swiss-roll recipe is loosely based on the recipe given in the wonderful Peyton & Byrne British Baking book, but as usual, I couldn’t resist tweaking the original slightly. In any event, if you are keen on baking, I strongly recommend that you try to get your hands on a copy of this book. Everything that I have made using the recipes contained within its pages tastes fabulous and has been devoured and much appreciated by the critics par excellence who are my friends and family. I have also made variations using bitter Seville oranges and pink grapefruit – but to be honest my favourite is this version.

The great thing about this recipe is that the swiss-roll can be served either as a tempting treat to have with a good cup of tea or a mug of coffee or as a dessert with a little extra whipped cream, if you like, served on the side. Either way, it is extremely tasty and something that I found irresistible.

Ingredients:

For preparing the swiss-roll tin:
A large knob of butter, melted
2tblsp self-raising flour for dusting the tin

For the swiss-roll:

3 large eggs, separated

175g caster sugar

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

2tsp lemon juice

100g self-raising flour, sifted

For the filling:

150ml single cream, lightly whipped

150g lemon curd

Some icing sugar for dusting 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.
2. Using a pastry brush, brush the melted butter over the base and side of a 32cm x 24cm swiss-roll tin and line with non-stick baking parchment. Brush a little more of the melted butter over the parchment and sprinkle with flour, tapping out any excess. Set aside.
3. Place the egg yolks and 140g of the caster sugar in a large mixing bowl. Using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar and lemon zest together until they are a pale and creamy colour and have almost doubled in volume. Mix in the lemon juice and gently fold in the sifted flour. Set aside.

4. Clean, wash and thoroughly dry the whisk attachments from the hand-held electric mixer. Place the egg whites in a scrupulously clean bowl and using the hand-held mixer, whisk them until they are starting to form gentle peaks. Add 35g caster sugar and mix for another minute of so until it is fully incorporated. This is your meringue.

5. Stir a couple of large tablespoons of the meringue into the egg-yolk mixture and mix through to loosen the mixture slightly. Add the rest of the meringue and fold in to the egg-yolk mixture trying to avoid knocking too much air out of the meringue. Once mixed, pour this batter into the prepared tin, smoothing out the mixture evenly (and gently) with an offset palette knife. Bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 20 minutes or until the cake has risen, feels springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow cool for about 5 minutes.

6. Turn the swiss-roll out onto clean cling-film which you have sprinkled with icing sugar. Carefully peel away the parchment paper and roll up the sponge from the short end, incorporating the cling film in each turn. Set aside to cool. When the sponge is completely cooled, carefully unroll it and spread the lemon curd evenly over it, followed by a layer of the cream. Use the cling film to help you roll out the swiss-roll again, but this time don’t allow any of it to become incorporated. Wrap in clean cling-film and refrigerate until you are ready to serve it.

7. When you are ready to serve the swiss-roll, carefully unwrap it from the cling-film and either sprinkle the top with some icing sugar or put 2 or 3 tablespoons of lemon curd into a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle and pipe in random stripes over the swiss-roll.

8. Serve cut into slices.

Serves 8-10.     

Marmalade Cake

There are certain cakes that just do it for me and this is one. It is beautifully moist, keeps very well and is full of the delicious flavour of orange due to the inclusion of the fresh orange juice and zest and the marmalade. Speaking of which, this cake is a great excuse to use a little of the Seville orange marmalade that I recently made – not that I really needed an excuse to bake this cake!

This recipe is based on one that I came across in the Peyton & Byrne – British Baking book that I recently acquired. As with many recipes that I uncover within the pages of my embarrassingly large cookery book collection, I have tweaked this one slightly. I have used blood oranges because they are what I had to hand, but I admit that I also found the slight pink hue that the blood orange juice gave to the finished cake was particularly appealing and very pretty looking.

Blood oranges just look so beautiful when cut in half horizontally to reveal their exotic interior. In the aforementioned book, Oliver Peyton comments that British baking is often accused of being predominately brown coloured. There is probably a certain truth in this and it is one of the reasons why I readily embrace all opportunities to introduce fresh and zingy colours and flavours to the foods I prepare. Rather than blood oranges you could of course use standard sweet oranges.

 

I used a coarse cut marmalade because I love the taste and texture of it, but you could use fine cut or one with no peel at all. Even if you are not normally a fan of coarse cut varieties, I urge you try one here because it really does add that little something extra.

 

Ingredients:

150g butter
130g caster sugar

70g light brown muscovado sugar

Finely grated zest of 2 blood oranges

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

75g Seville orange marmalade

2 tblsp blood orange juice

Pinch of salt

175g self-raising flour, sieved

Icing:

150g icing sugar

4-6 tblsp blood orange juice

 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Line a 900g loaf tin with non-stick baking parchment and set aside.
2. Using a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and orange together until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs gradually, beating well after each addition. Add the marmalade, orange juice and salt and mix together well to fully incorporate.

3. Add the sieved flour and fold in to the egg mixture thoroughly to create the cake batter. Spoon into the prepared tin and smooth the surface with a spatula or the back of a metal spoon.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 45 minutes until the cake is springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Do not check on the cake until at least 30-35 minutes of baking time have elapsed as the cake is liable to sink in the middle due to the inclusion of the marmalade.

5. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then remove to finish cooling on a wire rack. Once cooled, the cake can be iced.

Icing:

6. Mix the icing sugar and orange juice together in a small bowl and then pour evenly over the top of the cooled cake, letting it drip naturally down the sides of the cake.

Cuts into 8-10 generous slices.

     

Blood Orange Cake

For a cake that uses fruits available in this part of the world during the depths of winter, this is actually a welcoming and cheerfully summery looking cake.

Blood oranges tend to be slightly tarter than other oranges but I think that this is what gives this cake an added sophistication and makes it all the more inviting.

This is the type of cake that could be served as it is ideal for serving as a dessert, still slightly warm from the oven with a dollop of crème fraiche. Alternatively, you could serve it with a scoop of ice-cream, but I think the slight acidity of the crème fraiche is exactly what is called for here, so that is what I would suggest.

As with so many sweet recipes that include citrus fruits, you can interchange the fruits used quite easily. This cake would work equally well with ordinary oranges, with lemons or even with limes. If I were to use limes, I think I would add in a couple of heaped tablespoons of desiccated coconut and would omit the orange flower water substituting the finely grated zest and juice of a couple of limes to give a slightly tropical interpretation to the basic recipe given here. Lime or lemon marmalades could also be used in place of the orange marmalade to complement the chosen fruit.

 

This cake is extremely moist with a beautiful orange taste. Upside down cakes always seem to invite gasps of appreciation when they are up-turned onto the serving plate and I have to admit that because of this, I tend to make sure I have an audience when the big unveiling happens.
 

Ingredients:

Topping:
25g butter, for greasing cake tin
1 blood orange, thinly sliced

3-4 tblsp granulated sugar

Cake:

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

3tblsp orange marmalade

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

200g self-raising flour

50g ground almonds

½tblsp orange flower water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.

Topping:

2. Generously grease the bottom and sides of a 23cm round cake tin with butter and sprinkle in the sugar. Arrange the sliced orange slices on top of the sugar, overlapping to fit them in if necessary.

Cake:

3. Using a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy and then beat in the marmalade. Next beat in the eggs a little at a time. Fold in the flour and ground almonds and mix in the orange flower water.

4. Spoon the cake batter into the prepared cake tin and spread out the mixture evenly. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes until a inserted skewer comes out clean.

5. Leave to rest for 5 minutes and then turn out carefully onto a serving plate.

6. Serve warm with a spoonful of crème fraiche.

Serves 8-10.
  

    

Lemon Cake

My favourite cakes and I mean my FAVOURITE cakes to eat are lemon cakes. I love the taste of lemons and as such I am always eager to try out new and interesting recipes containing them.

With lemon cakes I am not overly bothered about producing fancy gateaux, but rather I like ordinary looking cakes that pack a hidden lemon flavour punch. My fail-safe lemon cake is at heart a basic Victoria sponge filled with lemon curd and drizzled with a lemon glace icing; incredibly simple to make but… oh… SO tasty!
 

Another favourite cake, which I have made hundreds of times during my life is my lemon Madeira cake. This is a solid looking cake, but with a surprisingly tender crumb! My children love it, particularly my son so I make it frequently.

 

Anyway, despite the fact that I have a couple of much-loved lemon cakes that I regularly bake, I am always keen to experiment and try out new variations. This recipe which is based on one that I came across by Raymond Blanc is unusual because you don’t cream the butter and sugar together and then add the eggs before introducing the flour. Here the ingredients are weighed and measured and placed into a bowl and beaten together and then the flour is added to make a fairly slack and runny batter. Plain flour is used, to which only a small amount of raising agent is added and yet the resulting cake is surprisingly light with a tight crumb. I was extremely pleased with how it tuned out and given how easy it was to make, I know that it is destined to become another family favourite.

 

I asked a few of my trusted taste-testers whether they liked the cake and the response was overwhelmingly positive. This is a cake that may look quite plain, but as we all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it is one that I would recommend to anyone who wants to make a no-nonsense cake packed full of flavour.

Ingredients:

Cake:

5 large eggs

300g caster sugar

140ml double cream

Finely grated zest of 3 lemons

2tblsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

80g butter, melted

240g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

To glaze:

3tblsp apricot jam

To finish:

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

150g icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Line a 24cm x 10cm loaf tin with baking parchment.
2. Place the eggs, sugar, cream, lemon zest, lemon juice and butter in a large bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat together until all the ingredients are mixed together.

3. Sift the flour and baking together and gradually mix into the egg mixture to create a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 50 minutes until the cake is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

4. Remove from the oven and allow sit for a couple of minutes and then remove the cake from the tin and place on a wire cooling rack. Do not switch off the oven.

To glaze:

5. Place the apricot jam into a small saucepan and warm through. Place the cake on a baking tray. Brush the sides and top of the cake with the warmed jam and set aside for a few minutes while you make the lemon glaze.

Lemon glaze:

6. Put all the ingredients for the lemon glaze in a small saucepan and heat through until the sugar has dissolved. Brush the lemon glaze over the top and sides of the cake and leave to rest for 10 minutes. Place the cake into the oven again and switch off the oven. Remove the cake after 5 minutes and when cool enough to handle place on a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

 

Serves 8-10.
 

 

    

Coconut Cake

I have always loved the flavour of coconut. I associate coconuts with Halloween and the winter months and think they add an exotic air to what can otherwise be a very dreary time of year. Coconut has a special place in many people’s hearts and has been used in many familiar sweets and biscuits that have been available in Ireland for decades.

Jacob’s Mikado and Coconut Cream biscuits have long been firm favourites in many an Irish household and I distinctly remember packets of them being bought for special occasions when visitors were expected. Coconut is also used in Jacob’s Polo biscuits and although a simple and plain biscuit, it is hard to stop yourself eating your way through an entire packet in one sitting!!

A particular favourite of mine are Caffreys’ Snowballs; dome shaped coconut sprinkled chocolate shells filled with soft sticky marshmallow. I loved them as a child and I still do.

In business for over 70 years Caffreys is an Irish family-run confectionary company, based in Dublin All Irish children are familiar Big Time and Macaroon Bars, Tea Cakes, Snowballs and the company’s other products.

Coconut and chocolate go very well together but I decided that for this cake, I didn’t want to go down the chocolate route. Initially I was going to fill and cover the cake with the coconut buttercream icing, but I quickly decided that some raspberry jam would compliment the taste of the coconut and lend an added fruitiness to the cake.

I wanted to create a cake that was quite frivolous looking but was in reality quite simple to make... I think that I have achieved it with this cake which is essentially a basic Victoria sponge cake with added creamed coconut and a splash of Malibu to heighten the coconut flavour. I decided to colour the sponge with a couple of drops of pink food colouring and I particularly like the effect achieved of the pink contrasting with the white of the coconut icing.

Ingredients:

175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder

3 large eggs

50g unsweetened desiccated coconut

2tblsp creamed coconut
1tblsp Malibu (optional)
1-2 drops of pink food colouring

Icing:

300g icing sugar

100g butter, softened

3tblsp creamed coconut
1tblsp Malibu (optional)

To finish:

100-125g raspberry jam

3-4tblsp unsweetened desiccated coconut (optional)
 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Butter and base-line three 15cm sandwich tins with non-stick baking parchment.
2. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and using an electric hand-held mixer, beat the ingredients together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well into the mixture before adding the next.
3. Sieve the flour and baking powder together and thoroughly fold into the butter and egg mixture. Add in the food colouring and mix well to fully incorporate. Gently stir in the desiccated coconut, Malibu and creamed coconut.
4. Divide the mixture evenly between the three sandwich tins and bake in the pre-heated oven for 17-20 minutes until golden and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about five minutes before removing from the tins. Place on wire racks to cool completely. When cool, remove the baking parchment.

To make the buttercream:

5. Using an electric hand-held mixer, beat the icing sugar, butter, Malibu and creamed coconut together until smooth. Spread one side of the first of the sponges with raspberry jam and then top with a thin layer of the buttercream. Place the second sponge on top of this and again spread a thin layer of the raspberry jam and then the buttercream on top. Top with the third sponge. Use the remaining buttercream to evenly cover the top and sides of the cake. If liked, sprinkle some more desiccated coconut over the sides and top of the cake.
 

Serves 8.