Honey and Lemon Cake recipe

This cake has hurtled straight to the very top of my favourite cake list.

I’m pretty certain I say that about every cake I bake…..but what can I say; there’s clearly no such thing as a bad cake.

With it very much being cold and flu season on the British Isles people are reaching for their tissues and home remedies in their masses. One of my favourite things about having a cold (yes, you heard me right) is the excuse to drink nothing but warm honey and lemon. It is possibly my favourite remedy, the reasons are threefold: 1. It tastes so good!, 2. It’s comforting, and 3. It works.

Honey and lemon is one of my favourite flavour combinations so it was inevitable that it would end up in cake form eventually. Plus it felt like the right time, the only thing more comforting than warm honey and lemon is cake, right?

The decoration of this cake is something of a triumph for me. After a few disasters in the design areas and a few hours staring at cakes on Pinterest. I have finally come to the conclusion that less is definitely more so I decided to give a metallic design cake a go.

There is little more pleasing to me than this cake (perhaps all the cakes); the sweetness of the denser honey sponges, the lightness of the Victoria sponge (designed to lift the cake), and the sharpness of the citrusy lemon buttercream, it is a cake created with the sole purpose of defeating sniffle-y blues.

Recipe

Honey Sponge:

Ingredients:

170g runny honey
140g butter
85g light muscovado sugar
2 eggs, beaten
200g self raising flour

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180°C

Put your sugar, honey and butter in a pan and gently melt together.

Remove from the heat and add in your flour and eggs. Combine and then add to a greased tin.

Bake for 40 minutes. 

Victoria Sponge:

Ingredients:

110g butter 
110g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
110g self raising flour

Method:

Cream together your butter and sugar, add and mix in your vanilla essence.

Add your eggs one at a time, making sure they are fully combined each time. 

Fold in your flour then place your mix in a greased tin.

Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly golden.

Frosting:

Ingredients:

500g royal icing sugar

250g butter

zest and juice of 1 lemon

Method:

Add all the ingredients to one bowl and mix until light and fluffy

Assembly and decoration:

Layer your sponges using a lemon curd and a spoonful of frosting to stick each layer.

Once layered frost the entire cake with a light layer of frosting to create a crumb layer, place in fridge to set.

Once set cover with the rest of your frosting using a smoothing tool to get a level finish.

To create the metalic design use a metalic dust and combine with a teaspoon of vodka. Brush onto your cake as you fancy.

Served with a giant splodge of cream this cake is sure to make fighting any cold a whole lot easier. You could be kind and make one for a loved one suffering with a cold (after all, you’ll get a slice) OR you could make it for yourself and eat the whole thing. Your choice really.