Lem Lem

As promised, here are the cake and lemon curd recipes for the previous post. I've been on a mission to use less processed foods, and I've started by trying to get away from using only refined white sugar. I recently bought a bag of turbinado sugar at Trader Joe's and I've been slipping that into my recipes. Since I wasn't sure how the larger light brown crystals would do in a white fluffy cake, I used half regular sugar and half turbinado. The cake was light and delicious, so I guess that was a successful experiment.


This is my new favorite cake. Simple, moist, and all around delicious. This is another recipe from the wonderful Brass Sisters, via their book Heirloom Baking.

White Cake
1 c room temperature buttermilk (or 1 c milk and 1 Tbs lemon juice)
2 1/4 c flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 c butter-room temperature
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Sift together dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well. Add vanilla. Alternately add sifted dry ingredients and milk. Mix until smooth, but be careful not to over mix. Pour in one 10" or two 7" cake pans that have been greased. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

Honey Lemon Curd

5 yolks
1 egg
2/3 c lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest (I used the whole lemon worth of zest, I like my curd tart!)
1/4 plus 2 Tbs honey
4 Tbs butter

Combine all ingredients except for butter. Place in heat proof bowl over a pot of boiling water, lower heat. Stir constantly until thick, about seven minutes. If you want a fluffy filling for a tart, vigorously whisk the mixture while it is cooking. Remove from heat and add butter. You can strain out the zest if you desire, but I always leave mine as is.

The cake was for my husband's birthday, and the little beehives were in honor of A.A. Milne's birthday in January. Both were frosted with some over whipped meringue that didn't look very pretty, but that still tasted delicious and marshmallow-y. It is just one part egg white to one part sugar, heated over a water bath until the sugar is all dissolved, and whipped to stiff peaks. The decorated cake can be put into a very hot oven to brown the meringue, or if you are lazy and you don't want your house to get hot again you can just torch it like I did.