He loves me-He loves me not Cake

The daisies of the park..

So many memories. There is a place in the park where we live where the daisies go crazy every year. I remember being very little and being shorter than them... Remember going in through the plants and turning yellow from the pollen and with so many bugs on my clothes and in my mouth...

Later in Spring we would collect them to make the 1st of May wreath for the house. I remember my mother teaching me the right way to pluck the flower, put it in the bag and continue with the next one. Then threading them with some string and using these strands to build up the wreath.

A couple of days ago I thought to make a cake. Wanted to make it with lilac flowers infusing the cream with their tiny beautiful flowers. But it did not turn out as I had hoped... The scent would not infuse the cream and so that idea went to waste. And so I decided to bake another cake.

As I had moved away from the reds of Easter to the yellows of Spring I decided to make a Lemon Ombre cake with three layers. Did not want to fill it with buttercream so I decided to make a white chocolate ganache and use that as a filling. Then since it would be yellow I thought to take the whole thing further and use Limoncello and lemon juice and rind to give the cake a lot of character. And since I had some home made lemon and orange curd I decided to fill the cake with that as well...
I also decided to frost it with Swiss meringue buttercream and that too would be with lemon flavor.

And then I thought of the daisies and decided to decorate the cake with them! So in the beginning I was thinking of calling the cake "Cake Margarita" like the pizza but then decided against that and since we as kids would ask the flower if our beloved one loved us by pulling each petal out I decided to give that name to the cake.

Hope you find it suitable...

So... Shall we see the ingredients?

Diffuculty: 3 of 3

Duration:Many many hours...

Serves:12 easily, 24 as well if you can cut thin enough slices

Ingredients

For the cake:

270 g of all purpose flour

135g almond flour

3tsp baking powder

1,5 tsp salt

290g of room temperature butter

450g granulated sugar

6 medium sized eggs

zest from 2 lemons

yellow food dye paste

250g of room temperature milk

75 g of limoncelo

For the syrup

150 g of water

150 g of regular sugar

70 g of Limoncello

For the white chocolate and lemon ganache

360 g white chocolate couverture

200 g full fat single cream

zest of one lemon

30 g of butter

You will also need some lemon curd.. use store bought one...

For the buttercream

5 Egg whites

300g plain sugar

370g butter in room temperature

zest of two lemons

1-2 tblsp of lemon juice

yellow food dye

Method

For the Sponges

It is important that all ingredients are at room temperature. That way the mixture will not “split”.

The mixture is enough for three cake baking trays 18-19cms in diameter.

Pre-heat the oven to 170c fan forced.

If you have a steam feature on your oven turn it on - if not put an oven proof bowl of water in the bottom of the oven during baking. The extra moisture will help the the sponges to become fluffy and light.

In a bowl mix the two types of flour with the baking powder and the salt.

In the mixer bowl put the butter and the sugar and mix them together with the zest until they are white and add the eggs in one by one making sure that each is mixed in well before adding the next one.

In a little bowl mix the milk and liqueur together.

Put the mixture with the flours and the milk mixture together in the mixer alternately in stages. 3 parts for flour to two parts of the milk. We start and finish with the flour mixture. Mix well after every part.

Butter and flour the cake baking trays and placed a circle of greaseproof paper in the base.

Divide the batter in three bowls and use the food colouring to give them 3 shades of yellow.

Place the cake mixture in the three trays and bake for 30-40 mins or until a toothpick can be poked in and come out clean from the sponge.

Don’t overcook the sponges or they will not be moist afterwards.

Once cooked take them out of the oven and place on racks to cool completely.

In the meantime prepare the syrup putting all the ingredients in a saucepan and bringing to the boil. Once the sugar has melted completely remove from the heat.

If you want the dessert to be a little “stronger” in flavour boil the water and the sugar first and add the liqueur after taking it off the heat.

For the Ganache

Finely chop the chocolate and put it in a bowl

Bring the cream to a boil and add it in the bowl with the chocolate.

Leave it there for 30 seconds to a minute and mix well afterwards. Add the butter and let it melt.

In the beginning it will be a beige colour. When alsmost cold whip it with a handheld whisk.. will turn white. Place it in a piping bag and have it ready.

For the buttercream

Boil some water in a saucepan.

Add the sugar and the egg whites in a metal bowl big enough to sit over the saucepan and whisk well. When the water starts simmering in the saucepan place the metal bowl above it and whisk up the mixture well. With a thermometer test the mixture and when it reaches 70c take the metal bowl carefully off the saucepan and throw the mixture into the mixer.

Add the zest and start mixing the mixture until it becomes like a meringue- wait until it cools right down before putting in the butter in little cubes slowly.

The meringue will collapse a little but continue to mix and it will fluff up again. Divide the buttercream in two and the one half divide again in half. These two lesser halves we colour them into two different shades of yellow.

Fill piping bags with the buttercream.

For the cake

Place the darkest of the sponges on the cake stand. Add a bit of the buttercream on the top of the stand under the sponge to make it more steady.

Soak it with 1/3 of the syrup.

Pipe half of the ganache in three rings around the sponge leaving a gap between them where we will pipe half of the lemon curd.

Place the second sponge on top (the medium yellow tone one) and soak it in syrup and pipe the rest of the ganache and lemon curd.

Place the third sponge, and soak it with the last of the syrup.

Place the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Make a crumb coat with the white buttercream and leave it in the fridge to cool down for 30 minutes.

Pipe the buttercream in rings around the cake starting from the darkest hue of yellow and ending with the white.

With a spatula we even the frosting all around the cake. With the buttercream that is left we decorate a bit the top of the cake.

Next the fun begins..

Using the petals of the flowers we stick them on the cake and as there are three colours of petals I did a reverse ombre effect on the cake using the petals...

Enjoy!!