Once you start making lemon cakes it’s hard to stop.  When people ask what my favourite cake is I say lemon tart, well tarte au citron which is so tangy and fresh you hardly notice the sugar.  But lemon drizzle cakes are sublime too and since discovering you can turn them into layer cakes (thank you Nadiya) the sky’s the limit.  This one keeps Nadiya’s combination of a lemon drizzle loaf with lemon curd and marshmallow fondant but with an extra cocktail layer of mint and rum white chocolate ganache.  Olé!!!  A mojito (light) lemonicious drizzle loaf.  And it’s painted too, which is very simple as you’ll see later.

The May cake collection

Just quickly, I almost forgot to share my May cake collection with you.  There was my super yummy birthday cake, the original lemon and raspberry drizzle cake and an amazingly simple and delicious nutella no-bake cheesecake I made a friend for a birthday party.

There were also a variety of caramel mousse-raspberry dome cake experiments and a healthier cherry and apricot tarte tatin with a maple syrup caramel and buckwheat pastry.  Recipes for those will be on the blog soon, but the praliné, caramelised almonds used to decorate the domes is already up.

The golden oldies I can’t help making occasionally were the French pain de mie loaf, my superfood seed and nut bread then the very yummy orange and rum fruitcake, all perfect to take into the wilderness.  Apologies, all my bakes have been out hiking along coastal routes, climbing and mountain biking on rough terrain (two words:  sore bum) but I didn’t get round to taking photos of the food ‘in action’.  Here’s just one photo of the pain de mie resting at home.

Oh, there’s a photo of these Ispahan cupcakes that made it as far as the car park but never saw the rock.  🙂

And now for the recipe.  It’s an adaptation of the last cake published but also worth posting because there’s that whole painting thing and a couple of new illustrated recipes.  Because I made it up as I went along there was a lot more lemon than lime in my cake.  It’s only at the last minute that I went mojito, but you could substitute lime for half the lemon juice or zest in both the curd and the drizzle cake.

THE MOJITO LEMONICIOUS DRIZZLE LOAF

Mint and rum white chocolate ganache

Make this 24 hours before (1 day or more before) so it has time to thicken.  Follow the recipe on my mojito macarons recipe here.  You’ll need about 1/3 to half the quantity.  If you have some left use as a strawberry dip, or fill biscuits and macarons.  I hear it’s also delicious just eaten with a spoon…!

• Reduced quantity:
• 63ml/g whipping cream (35% is okay)
• 10g/a handful fresh mint (just the leaves)
• 118g/4oz white chocolate – chopped into small pieces, or use white chocolate baking drops (25-31% white cooking chocolate that isn’t too vanilla flavoured or sweet)
• 13ml/g white rum

Lemon (lime) curd

For a loaf tin you’ll only need 3/4 of the quantity below so use the remaining curd to spread on toast or in another cake.  Yum.  And you can replace half the lemon juice with lime juice.

• 1 egg (60g) and 1 egg yolk (20g) – from medium-large eggs
• half a tablespoon cornflour stirred and diluted in a teaspoon or more cold water
• finely-grated zest of half a lemon and half a lime
• 75ml/g freshly-squeezed lemon juice (about 1 and a half or 2 lemons) – option:  33ml/g lime juice and 32ml/g lemon juice
• 100g/1/2 cup less 1 teaspoon golden or white caster/superfine sugar (or granulated)
• 40g/3 tablespoons good-quality unsalted butter

Lemon drizzle loaf

For the full written recipe and photos please see my Lemon drizzle and raspberry layer cake with marshmallow fondant recipe.  But make less for a loaf tin:

• Reduced quantities (3/4 of original):
• 168g/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
• 168g/3/4 cup caster/superfine sugar
• 3 medium free-range eggs (170 to 180g), beaten
• finely grated zest of 2 and 1/4 lemons
• 168g/1 and 3/4 cups plus 1 and 3/4 tsp self-raising flour – I made my own with 162g/1 and 1/3 cups plain cake flour, 1 and 1/4 teaspoons (6g) baking powder and 1/5 teaspoon fine sea salt
• optional:  a couple of tablespoons of freshly-squeezed lemon juice (I folded this in at the end because my cake batter was a bit stiff, so I could get ‘dropping’ consistency where you hold it up and it drops with a plop from the rubber spatula)

Lemon drizzle

• freshly-squeezed juice of 1 and 1/2 lemons (75ml/g)
• 55g/1/4 cup caster/superfine sugar

Marshmallow Fondant

• Reduced quantities for a loaf tin (ignore the quantities in the illustration)
• 150g/5 and 1/4oz white American-style marshmallows
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons water
• 275g icing/powdered sugar

Note:  if you have some fondant left over it can be stored at room temperature wrapped in plastic film, but it could be difficult to work and you will need to warm it a little to soften it again.

Assembly

Slice your cake horizontally in half and spread white chocolate ganache then three-quarters of your lemon curd on the bottom half of the cake.  Place the other half of the cake on top.  If a little curd or ganache starts coming out then spread it all around the cake as a thin layer.  Cover the cake with a thin layer of marshmallow fondant (more details are on the lemon drizzle and raspberry layer cake recipe).

Painting and the way of disasters

Now this was the first time I painted (on) a cake.  And to tell the truth I did it because I didn’t wait long enough for the ganache to firm up and it went crazy liquid and spurted all over the place.  I spread it all over the cake to compensate.  And thought … aargh.  Stupid cake.  aargh.  Then I thought, well I might as well paint it.  I’ve never painted a cake before and why not try this experiment on my disaster cake?

The technique:  dilute a little powdered food colouring in a little water and mix different shades on a plate then pretend you’re painting with watercolours!!!  Yup, that’s it.  Have a few little bowls of water for cleaning your paintbrushes, one bowl for each paintbrush and colour to keep your shades pure.  I’ve read you should use vodka or alcohol (not water) because it evaporates quickly.  But I didn’t have any so I used as little water as possible and painted very lightly and quickly.  Once finished the paint was dry in 30 minutes.  Perhaps marshmallow fondant is drier than your everyday fondant.

It took about 15 minutes by the way.  For some reason it was easier for me to paint on that cake than when I used to paint on paper (?!).  I looked at some lemons and mint leaves then painted them.  Then I ran out of inspiration so painted love hearts because I love cakes.  Ahem.

I was very surprised it looked quite nice.  I was even more surprised when the cake tasted amazing and my friends loved it.  Just goes to show it’s true what they say about cake disasters – sometimes it all works out and gets eaten.  🙂  By the way, I believe everyone can paint and has their own style so would love to see your painted cakes!

Good luck with all your bakes sweet reader and have a lovely yummy weekend ahead!  🙂  Lili x

 

Save

Save