I imagine you’d be hard pushed to find someone who doesn’t love a #lemondrizzle cake. They’re simple to make and easy to eat! As with any citrus fruits, the lemon flavour seems to make the cake a little lighter and fresher (which usually means you can manage a bigger piece)! The ‘drizzle’ part of this cake gives a wonderful crunch and a little extra sweetness to cut through the sharpness of the lemons. If you have any lying about you can add a few poppy seeds into the mixture before baking to add that little something extra to the cake. I also added some raspberry jam in between the layers (a flavour that works very well with lemon) and some freeze-dried raspberry pieces for an intense ‘burst’ of flavour every now and again. Now that we’re getting into the warmer weather and the #flowers are in bloom, I thought I’d incorporate this into my decorations to make this #bake bright and cheery! I have been wanting to try the ‘palette knife buttercream flowers’ technique for a while now and this recipe will show you the end result of my first attempt! I love the way that they are in relief and stand out from the cake, it really makes them look like they’ve been painted on. I found that the technique is quite forgiving, even when you decide to use your darkest colour first (which perhaps was not the smartest idea!). The flowers didn’t always turn out how I had imagined them in my head but I was very happy with the end result. It has the painted look I was hoping for. The best petals were the ones I just went for without hesitation so be brave and just whack it on! I would recommend you clean the edges of the palette knife so you have all your icing in the centre of the knife so you can choose which direction you ‘sweep’ your petals in. I have included a few short videos for a few how I had the icing on the knife before doing the different types of petals. Once you have done a few they get easier so feel free to practice on a spare cake board before the cake if you would rather.
This technique leaves a lot of room for #imagination, combining colours and knife strokes to make different looking flowers. You can go bold with bright colours or stick to pretty pastels if you prefer. If you are not a big decorator then try this recipe with a simple mix of icing sugar, lemon juice (you will need an extra lemon that the recipe says for this) and a little water and simply drizzle over the top to finish and/or add some candied lemon pieces and white chocolate shavings.
Recipe:
Prep time: 15 mins Baking: 18-20 mins Cooling: 1 hr Decorating: 2hr+
Serves: 12-16 people
Ingredients
For the cake:
300 g flour sugar and butter
6 eggs
Vanilla essence
3 tsp baking powder
Rind of 2 lemons and juice of 1 lemon
75 g sugar and juice of 1 Large lemon for drizzle
For the butter Icing
600 g icing sugar
325 g unsalted butter
Juice half lemon
Splash if milk
Food colouring
Method:
10. Add the buttercream between each layer along with the jam and assemble your cake. Coat the entire outside of the cake with a thin ‘crumb coat’ and put in the fridge to harden (~15 mins). This should use about half of the buttercream mixture.
2. Beat together the sugar and butter until smooth
3. Add in your eggs one at a time and beat
4. Gradually add the flour before adding the lemon juice and rind. If you think the mixture is a little thick then add a splash of milk.
5. Add the baking powder and fold into the mixture.
6. Separate into you 3 cake tins and bake for 18-20 mins or until a fork comes out clean when you prick the centre of the cake.
7. While the cake is in the oven squeeze the juice of one large lemon into the 75 g of sugar and mix well. This will be your ‘drizzle’.
8. Prick the entire surface of the cake and spoon over the ‘drizzle mixture’. Leave the cakes to cool.
At this stage you mix together some icing sugar with water to drizzle over the cakes once cool if you are not wanting to decorate with flowers.
9. To assemble, cream together the butter and sugar for the icing and add the juice of half a lemon and a little milk. Beat with the electric whisk until light and fluffy.
10. Add the buttercream between each layer along with the jam and assemble your cake. Coat the entire outside of the cake with a thin ‘crumb coat’ and put in the fridge to harden (~15mins). This should use about half of the buttercream mixture.
11. With the remaining buttercream choose your colours and mix in separate bowls. You can do the flowers directly onto the plain background or blend a colour into the cake as I have done with the blue here. Whatever you decide, put your cake back into the fridge once you have your background so it will harden slightly whilst you mix your other colours.
12. To do the flowers it is easiest to spread a little of each colour on a cake board.
13. Scoop a little bit of your first colour onto the palette knife and wipe down the edges so the buttercream is in the centre (Video 1).
14. Add more buttercream to the knife by taking small sections of buttercream at a time so you end up with a slightly curled piece of buttercream (Video 1- ~40 sec).
15. Swipe the buttercream onto the cake, moving the tip of the palette knife around a central point (in the way a compass draws a circle around a central point). This will create a petal that stands out from the cake. Repeat this 4-5 more times to get all your petals. Don't panic if you think it doesn't look right on the first petal. This technique is very forgiving and usually by the time you finished the flower it is looking great!
16. Add a little yellow or orange to the centre of the flower to finish off and repeat.
Top tip: I also created more closed flowers by putting them on the cake after step 13 and just creating 3 petals for a side-on view (See final picture).
After your crumb coat has set, put on a thicker coat of your base colour
Add small sections of another colour if you fancy it
Smooth out your icing and put in fridge while you mix your other colours
Choose a selection of icing colours to make your flowers
Here are a few videos of how I did the decorations. I've afraid my camera set up is not ideal so I had to turn the cake towards me to apply it but here you will see what I was describing above about putting the icing on the palette knife. (Also, I'm afraid you will also have to put up with my music in the background as it was playing out my laptop that I was recording this on but it's a great summer soundtrack so at least it fits with the post)!
Video 1
Video 2
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