We are taking a temporary (very temporary, so don’t you worry) pause from cookie content™ to talk about this cake. This cake, more specifically, is a three layer meyer lemon almond cake with lemon curd, honey syrup soak, and vanilla buttercream. And if we want to go into more specifics, it was the cake I made for myself for my birthday this year. What they don’t tell you before you decide to turn baking into a serious hobby or into your entire personality, is that people will get intimidated to bake for you and you have to resort to making your own birthday cake each year. Please don’t mistaken that as me complaining, because I truly enjoyed making each component of this cake and topping it with the most perfect blue silk bows.
If you’ve been following along for a while, this lemon almond cake shouldn’t be a stranger to you. I shared the first version of this cake many years ago, but deemed it was time to give it a little makeover. We’re swapping out lemon for meyer lemon (but I promise that it’s just as good as regular lemons if you have trouble finding meyer lemons) for the cake layers and we’re adding a lemon curd (I love using Bonne Maman Lemon Curd or using my favourite lemon cream recipe from Tartine) between each layer. A honey simple syrups keeps the layers extra plush. The entire cake then gets enrobed in the silkiest vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, which I think is always worth the effort.
I know that simple naked cakes with fresh flowers has always been my cake decorating style, but this year we’re going in the opposite direction. My recent obsession (and I mean obsession) with vintage, heart-shaped cakes led me to this — light pink and blue buttercream borders and trim, lots of edible glitter, wafer paper butterfly decorations, and the perfect silk bows. I wish I had better advice and words of wisdom to share when it comes to decorating vintage cakes, but this is only my second one ever and I would be lying if I said this entire decorating process was not fuelled by anxiety. That be said, the whole buttercream process is very forgiving and even if it seems like the cake isn’t turning out… it will indeed turn out and it will be better than you expected.
Meyer Lemon Almond Cake with Lemon Curd and Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Ingredients
Meyer Lemon Almond Cake
- 300 g (1 1/2 cup) granulated sugar
- Zest of one (meyer) lemon
- 170 g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 150 g (1 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour
- (3/4 cup) almond flour
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 180 g (3/4 cup) full-fat sour cream
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) fresh (meyer) lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Lemon Curd
- 1 1/2 cup store-bought or homemade lemon curd
Honey Simple Syrup
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) honey
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) water
Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- 6 large egg whites
- 400 g (2 cups) granulated sugar
- 680 g (3 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Gel food colouring
Instructions
Meyer Lemon Almond Cake
- Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and line the bottom three 6-inch cake pans with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine granulated sugar and lemon zest. Rub the sugar and zest mixture between your fingers, working the sugar into the zest. This will release the essential oils into the sugar.
- Add butter to the same bowl, and using the paddle attachment, beat the butter with the sugar at medium speed until fluffy, about 1 minute.
- At medium speed, add eggs one at a time, only adding the next egg after the first one has been incorporated.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
- In a measuring cup, combine sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla.
- With the mixer running on low, add the dry ingredients and wet ingredients in two increments. Mix until just combined.
- Divide the batter evenly into the three prepared cake pans. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle of each comes out clean.
- Remove cakes from oven and let them cool on a cooling rack for 15 minutes. Run an offset spatula or butter knife around each pan and release cakes. Let cakes to cool completely before assembling.
Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Bring a pot of water to a light boil.
- Whisk together egg whites and sugar in a large metal bowl.
- Place bowl over the the pot of boiling water, making sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl. Continue whisking until all the sugar has dissolved, about 2 minutes. The mixture should be hot to the touch.
- Transfer egg white mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on high speed for 8 – 10 minutes, until mixture becomes glossy and the meringue holds a medium – stiff peak.
- Switch the whisk attachment for a paddle attachment. With the mixer on low, slowly add butter, a tablespoon at a time.
- Once all the butter has been incorporated, add vanilla extract. Turn the mixture to medium – high speed and beat buttercream until fluffy and smooth, about 2 – 3 minutes.
- Divide buttercream into small bowls and colour with gel food colouring as desired.
Honey Simple Syrup
- In a small pot, combine honey and water.
- Bring to a light simmer, whisk over very low heat, stirring until combined.
- Remove from heat and allow syrup to cool before using
Assembly
- Level cake layers with a serrated knife.
- Place a cake layer on cake stand or plate. Using a pastry brush, brush on a thin layer of honey simple syrup. Pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge of the cake layer then fill with lemon curd. Top with next cake layer and repeat.
- Top with final cake layer and frost and decorate cake as desired.
![day two: sparkly matcha neapolitan shortbread cookies ✨
the instructions might seem confusing, but if you watch the video to see how the different flavour layers are stacked, it will make much more sense! these slice and bake cookies freeze extremely well so you can make the dough now and bake them off when you want to gift them. (makes 40-44)
vanilla dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
matcha dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp culinary matcha powder
1/4 tsp salt
strawberry dough
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g 6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tbsp freeze-dried strawberry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg white
coarse sanding sugar
for the vanilla dough, combine butter and powdered sugar in a bowl. mix until smooth. add vanilla. add flour and salt and mix until no dry streaks remain. do the same for the matcha and strawberry doughs in separate bowls
place one portion of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll into a 5 x 9-inch rectangle that is about 1/4-inch thick. slide rolled out dough onto a baking sheet and freeze for 10 min until firm. repeat this step with the other portions of dough
remove the top piece of parchment from each slab and stack the strawberry, vanilla, and matcha dough layers. cut the slab down the middle the long way to form two 2.5 x 9-inch rectangles. with one half, carefully swap the order of the layers (example: if the first half of the dough is stacked svm, swap the second half so it’s msv. this will ensure that same flavour squares don’t stack on each other). stack the halves. press the layers gently to adhere them. return the stacked dough to the freezer for another 10min
[recipe cont’d in comments]
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