Recipe for Yellow Cake with Lemon Curd (aka Happiness Cake)
Some notes about the recipe:
*If you can't eat gluten, you can sub in your favorite gluten-free flour mix, or give this a go with a combination of almond and coconut flours, plus a little baking soda (sorry...I'm not sure how much). If it doesn't work out, please don't get mad at me, though: I didn't try it that way.
*If the butter puts you off, we need to talk. (Please eat butter.)
*There's sugar in the lemon curd and the cake. Use organic and everything will be ok (ps everything will be ok if you use regular sugar, too).
*If you can't eat eggs: this just isn't the cake for you. Try "googling" around for an egg-free white cake recipe that you can fill with jam so you can have cake, too :)
Servings: 0 one 9-inch cake
Ingredients
- *1 cup 2 sticks softened unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the cake pan
- *Pinch of fine sea salt
- *1 cup sugar plus extra for dusting (I used fair-trade, organic sugar
- *4 medium eggs beaten (I used eggs from my chickens)
- *1 ½ cups self-rising flour I used King Arthur Flour enriched, unbleached, self-rising flour
- *1 to 2 tablespoons milk optional
- *Meyer lemon curd my recipe is here for filling and icing the cake (or use jam: raspberry would be perfect). Note that you will need anywhere between 1 to 2 cups of lemon curd to fill and ice the cake. I was a little heavy-handed with the filling and ran low for the icing: I mixed what I had left with a few tablespoons of mascarpone cheese so it would go further.
- *Confectioner's sugar to dust the cake optional- if you don't use an icing
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch layer cake pan. Line with a circle of parchment paper, if you have it.
- 2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until fluffy and pale. Add the salt, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour and enough milk to so that the batter is not too stiff.
- 3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until it’s golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for a few minutes before removing the cake from the pan (peel away the parchment paper if you used it).
- 4. Let the cake cool completely, then use a long, sharp knife to slice through the center so that you have two layers that are approximately the same height (don’t worry if they're not exactly even, though). Spread the lemon curd (or jam) onto the bottom layer, then put the other layer on top. Dust with powdered sugar, or mix remaining lemon curd with mascarpone and use this to thinly ice the cake. This cake will keep well in an airtight container for 4-5 days: common sense tells me I should have refrigerated the leftovers because of the eggs in the lemon curd, but I didn't...you do what feels right to you.