Lemon Tea Cake with Lemon Curd and Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

This is summer. Ranunculus stems, farm-fresh berries, cotton candy skies, and the blithe nature of it all. Those are some of the things I treasure the most in summer. This summer, though, has been one quite different than the ones in the past. I learned more, laughed more, loved more, and grew up the most. I learned to love fully. Love deeply. I also learned all of that can come with the greatest ease.

This cake is my summer cake. It is a frosted glass of ice cold iced tea with a lemon wedge, a refreshing tangy lemon curd bright enough to make you pucker a little, a cheesecake bar at your favourite bodega. This cake is a few of my summertime favourites rendered into one. It starts off with three layers of fluffy Lemon Tea Cake made with Pure Leaf Lemon Iced Tea. They sandwich a brightly-hued tart lemon curd. A cream cheese frosting, because a classic never goes out of style, enrobes the cake. It dresses it only partially because that’s been the theme of cakes here ever since day one. The cake is adorn with stems of ranunculus and garden roses because I like my cakes to also serve as a seasonal greeting of some sort.

I am particularly thrilled by the summer qualities of this cake because everything I have been baking recently have been quite the opposite of ‘summer’. If you follow me on social media you will see that the past weekend was filled with many snippets of what appeared to be Christmas cookies. Apparently, but not surprisingly, editorial (!!) work has to be done much in advance and it is really up to you to find fresh cranberries in the summertime and candy canes while everyone traded those in for summer ice pops a few months back. It was a challenge I happily accepted and look forward to seeing the fruition of. I will keep you posted, I promise.

Lemon Tea Cake with Lemon Curd and Vanilla Buttercream

Makes 1 six-inch three-layer cake

By Amy

Ingredients

Lemon Tea Cake

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 4 egg whites
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup PURE LEAF Lemon Iced Tea

Lemon Curd

• 2 lemons, for the zest
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3 large eggs, whisked
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
• Pinch of salt

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 tablespoons cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Lemon Tea Cake

• Preheat oven to 350F and prepare three cake pans.
• In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
• Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in egg whites and full egg one at a time, until well combined. Mix in vanilla extract.
• On low speed, alternate adding flour mixture with the milk and lemon iced tea, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix until just combined.
• Evenly distribute batter among the cake pans. Bake for 36 – 38 minutes, or until insert comes out clean.

Lemon Curd

• Zest two large lemon. Combine the lemon zest and sugar in a small bowl and using your fingers, rub the zest and sugar together until it becomes aromatic. Set aside.
• Whisk the three eggs before tempering.
• Prepare a double boiler. In the double boiler, whisk together juice, lemon-sugar, and eggs together until sugar has melted. Stir in butter and continue whisking frequently. Cook the curd in the double boiler until curd is thick enough to hold marks of whisk and first bubble appears on surface, about 10 minutes.
• Transfer lemon curd to a bowl and chill.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

• Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth.  With the mixer on low, mix in the remaining ingredients until just combined.  Once incorporated, turn up the mixer to medium-high and beat until fluffy.  Adjust the sugar and milk until frosting is at desired consistency.

Thank you PURE LEAF for supporting Constellation Inspiration!