Classic Buttermilk Sponge Cake with Lemon and Lime Cream Cheese Icing

Ok, so this has taken me ages…not the baking, the translating! Let me explain. Last week I happened to mention that my kitchen was filled to the brim with lemons (that's an exaggeration, I'll admit, there were only about eleven of said lemons). I successful managed to use four to make lemon curd, and a few more for lemonade and various other snacks. Then my mother suggested her Classic Buttermilk Sponge Cake with Lemon-Cream Cheese Icing. Yum! How could I resist? The fact is, "her" cake was derived from a recipe published in the Afrikaans magazine Sarie on 8 March 2000 (I know this because she has the magazine clipping) and since she hadn't actually re-written the recipe, but only added pen corrections, some of which I didn't understand leaving me to mix my lemon rind into the icing instead of sprinkling it on top as she does, meant I had the task of translating it.

Ps I'm enjoying a slice as I'm writing this and it's delicious.

Before adding the lemon zest...

Classic Buttermilk Sponge Cake with Lemon and Lime Cream Cheese Icing

Serves 8 (or makes 24 cupcakes, bake for only 20 minutes)

Cake

250g plain/pastry flour

7.5ml baking powder

2.5ml bicarbonate of soda

1ml salt

3 eggs, room temperature

230ml buttermilk, room temperature

5ml vanilla paste or the seeds from 1 vanilla bean

150g unsalted butter, room temperature

300g superfine/caster sugar

Icing

rind from 2 lemons

rind from 1 lime

250g cream cheese, room temperature

100g unsalted butter, room temperature

5ml vanilla paste or the seeds from 1 vanilla bean

500g icing sugar

extra lemon and lime rind for decoration

Preheat the coven at 180°C. Prepare two small cake tins (no more than 20cm in diameter) by buttering the inside and then lining the base with baking paper.

Sieve together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and salt.

Beat the eggs lightly until the whites and yolks have mixed. In a separate container combine the vanilla and buttermilk.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter in a large bowl. Add the caster sugar and beat until light in colour and creamy. Add the eggs, one tablespoon at a time, mixing thoroughly between each addition.

In turn, fold in a quarter of the dry ingredients and a third of the buttermilk mixture into the creamed butter until all the ingredients have been combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tins.

Bake for 30 minutes (or until the sides have started coming away from the tin and the bounces back when it is lightly pressed).

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing from tin and placing on a cooling rack. Remove the baking paper while still warm to prevent it sticking. Allow to cool completely before icing.

Icing

Using an electric mixer, cream butter, lemon and lime zest, cream cheese and vanilla until light and fluffy. Slowly add the the icing sugar until combined.

Cover the top of one cake with icing, place second cake on top and decorate with remaining icing. Finally sprinkle with extra lemon and lime zest.

Lemon Curd Tartlets

Lemons are in season!!! I know this because after grabbing a couple of lemons on a quick shopping trip on Wednesday, I came home to find that there were a further nine in the fruit bowl. This lemon hoarding is a new phenomenon, which started soon after I moved to Sydney. After years in Africa with a lemon tree in every garden of every house I've ever lived in, I moved to a city where the cockatoos love lemons even more than I do and subsequently, this time, there are no lemon trees for me to harvest.
     What to do about suddenly owning 11 lemons? Make lemon curd!

Lemon curd on toast. The butter has set and it's amazingly creamy.

For the pastry you can take a short-cut by using high-quality store bought rough puff pastry, or if you're a purist, The British Larder has an excellent recipe for rough puff pastry.

Ingredients

Pastry

250g rough puff pastry, store bough or fresh.

Filling

Juice and zest of 4 small lemons

3 large, free-range eggs

1 egg yolk

125g caster sugar (very fine sugar)

125g cold, unsalted butter, cut small squares

Method

Pastry: Preheat the oven to 180°C, grease 10 mini tart pans. Roll the pastry out to between 2 and 3mm thick, and cut into 10cm diameter discs. Place a disc in each pan and press the pastry into the pan. 

     Cover with baking paper, fill with pie weights (or rice if you don't have pie weights). Bake for 18 minutes. Remove the baking paper and pie weights and bake for a further 2 minutes. 

     Remove the pastry shells from the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack. 

Filling: Chose a sauce pan and large metal mixing bowl which fit together well (without the mixing bowl falling into the sauce pan). Bring water to a simmer in the sauce pan.

     Whisk the eggs and sugar together in the mixing bowl with a balloon whisk. Add the lemon juice.

     Place the mixing bowl over the simmering water and gently stir the mixture with a spoon until it thickens.

     Once the mixture has thickened remove it from the heat, add the butter and mix until all the butter has melted and the mixture becomes glossy.

Fill each pastry shell with the lemon curd.

     Pour the remaining curd into a clean jar and allow to cool in the fridge. Lemon curd on toast is amazing.

White Chocolate and Coconut Truffles (with lemon and macadamia)

Having a chocolatier for a father meant that by the age of nine I was a deft hand at the art of truffle making. The classic truffle is consists of chocolate ganache worked into a ball and coated in cocoa powder (it resembles the black truffle fungus, hence the name). Below is the recipe for one of my favourite truffles (admittedly my father refuses to acknowledge it as a true truffle, because it doesn't use cream, nor does it use real chocolate in his opinion):

Makes approx. 20

Ingredients

125ml coconut milk

400g Lindt white chocolate

zest of one lemon

100g macadamia nuts

150g desiccated coconut

Method

1. Heat water in a large pot on the stove. Place the coconut milk and white chocolate into a large glass/stainless steel bowl.  2. Place this over the pot with the hot, not boiling, water. Stir the chocolate until it has melted and formed a smooth mixture. Allow to cool. 

3. Add the lemon zest and a few drops of lemon juice to taste.

4. Refrigerate the mixture for 30-60 minutes. Once the mixture is firm to touch and workable it is ready to be rolled.

5. Roll one macadamia into the center of the truffle, form a ball and then roll the truffle in the desiccated coconut. 

6. Return to the fridge for another hour.

Note: Never melt your chocolate in a microwave, the risk of burning it is much too high. Rather use the technique of a glass bowl over some hot water, but make sure that the water isn't boiling and that NO water comes in contact with the chocolate. Boiling water causes steam which then condenses into water droplets. One drop will ruin melting chocolate (although chocolate can safely be melted in water, one drop will cause the cocoa solids and fats to separate and the chocolate to tighten)