Lemon Meringue Cake

Here's the recipe for this great cake I made my sister for her birthday. I've had a few requests for the recipe. It sounds like a hassle but I can't honestly say it's worth the effort. It origanally came from a recipe by Julie Le Clerc but I have changed the cake recipe to a denser, easier to prepare cake and don't make swiss meringue just the usual stuff. I loved the original recipe but am not into making extra work for myself when it really doesn't change the result much.

Lemon curd

4 large egg yolks (save whites for meringue)
2 large eggs
¾ cup caster sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
½ cup of lemon juice
125g butter, roughly chopped

Whisk the egg yolks and eggs and place in a heavy based saucepan with remaining ingredients. Place over low heat, stirring constantly for 10 minutes or until the mixture thickly coats the back of a spoon. Remove to cool.

Extra note: This lemon curd is fabulous on nice hot toast if you have any left over!

Easy lemon cake

100g softened butter
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
Zest of 2 large lemons
Juice of 1 lemon
1 ¾ cup of flour
1 ½ tsp of baking powder
1 ½ cups of milk

Preheat oven to 180C or lower if it’s a fan oven. Grease and line a 20cm loose-bottom cake tin. In a large bowl cream the butter and the sugar till light in colour. Add the eggs one at a time beating well between each egg. Add the lemon juice and zest and mix through. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the wet mix. Add the milk and mix to combine. Pour the mix into the prepared tin and bake for at least 50mins. It is ready when a skewer comes out clean. When the cake has cooled slice it carefully into 3-4 layers with a serrated knife. Spread each of the layers with the cooled lemon curd and place the cake layers back together. Leave the cake covered in the fridge for 30 minutes to set. Transfer the cake to an oven tray and cover the cake with the meringue, make decorative swirls over it and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 5 minutes watching carefully until meringue has just browned around the edges. This cake will last in the fridge for 3-4 days if someone doesn’t eat it first. J

Meringue

4 egg whites (saved from lemon curd)
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

Beat the egg whites in a clean dry bowl with clean egg beaters until it gets stiff. Start to spoon in caster sugar spoonful by spoonful whilst continuing to beat egg whites. Add vanilla essence and continue beating egg whites till white, stiff and glossy.