Lemon Cake with Elderflower Buttecream
This lemon and elderflower scented cake layered with homemade lemon curd and finished with elderflower buttercream is a gluten free take on Royal Wedding Cake. Yes, those royals. As mentioned in a previous post, this cake was inspired by the cake eaten at Meghan and Harry's nuptials made by Claire Ptak at Violet Cakes in London.
This recipe was adapted with my gluten free cake flour blend and made dairy free with the use of vegan butter in the cake and buttercream (which isn't vegan since it contains eggs, as does the lemon curd which is full of wonderfully rich ochre colored pastured yolks).
The cake and lemon curd was made with lemons from our backyard trees which are exploding. Decorated very simply with a (love it or loathe it) "naked cake" finish and dehydrated fresh citrus. When they’re in bloom, I finish this cake with fresh camellias from our historic camellia bush that absolutely explodes every year. But the rest of the year, dehydrated citrus, it is.
One of the things I love most about this cake (which is saying something, because there’s a lot I love about this cake!) is that it marked the first time I was able to pull off a real Victorian style sponge without gluten. It was soft and airy and though the rise wasn’t as high and the crumb wasn't as open as some of the other cakes I've made, the cake was sturdy and moist without being stodgy or gummy the way gluten free cakes too often can be.
The lemon curd is sublime and absolutely worth the little extra time to make from scratch. I also go as heavy as I can on the Elderflower liqueur without breaking the buttercream and the scent was heavenly.
Recipe and method for this cake and curd coming soon. Stay tuned!
In the LA area and want to try one of these cakes yourself?
