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Easter Lemon Layer Cake With Poppy Seeds

An easy recipe for Easter Lemon Layer Cake With Poppy Seeds.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Total Time 6 hours
Course Dessert
Servings 10 slices

Ingredients
  

Cake layers

  • 120 g butter room temp
  • 70 ml oil
  • 300 g granulated sugar
  • 40 g vanilla sugar
  • zest from 1 lemon
  • 4 eggs
  • 370 g cake flour
  • 2 tbsps cornstarch
  • 12 g baking powder
  • 200 ml full-fat milk with juice from ½ lemon
  • 1 tbsp poppy seeds or chia seeds

Buttercream

  • 350 g butter room temp
  • juice from ½ lemon
  • lemon zest from 1 lemon
  • 550 g icing sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla paste
  • 1 tbsp milk
  • ½ tsp yellow food colouring

Lemon curd

  • 70 g cubes of butter room temp
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 110 g granulated sugar
  • zest from 2 lemons
  • 110 ml lemon juice

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 180℃. Prepare 3 greased cake tins with a diameter of 17 cm.
  • Rub lemon zest into the sugar for the best taste. In a bowl whisk together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Whip for 4-5 minutes. Add oil and whip again.
  • Add eggs - one at a time while whisking. The batter should be creamy. Whisk until fully combined.
  • Add lemon juice to the glass of milk. Stir well and let sit aside for 5 minutes.
  • Mix flour, cornstarch and baking powder into another bowl. Add ⅓ of the flour mix into the batter, mix well. Pour ½ of the lemon milk and mix again. Continue until the flour mix will be added as last.
  • Pour the batter into cake tins and bake for 35-45 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool completely. Take them out of the cake tins after 20 minutes.

Lemon curd

  • Pour water into a pot and let it boil. Put a heatproof bowl over the pot - it cannot be metallic or the curd will get that taste. Also - use a plastic egg whisker for the same reason!
  • Put all the ingredients except for butter into the bowl. Whisk them while they're cooking over the boiling water on medium heat. After some time (15 minutes of whisking) they should get thick like a hollandaise sauce and change colour to pale. If not - add more heat.
  • Once the sauce is thicker and pale, remove it from the heat and add small cubes of room-temperature butter! Whisk it and then put it aside to cool. It gets thick once it's cool.

Buttercream

  • I changed the whisker attachment to the paddle attachment. Beat the butter with icing sugar for 5 minutes. If needed scrape down the bowl.
  • Add the vanilla paste, yellow food colouring, lemon zest, and lemon juice and beat for another 10 minutes until creamy and soft. The whole process of creaming the buttercream should take 15-20 minutes for the softest buttercream ever.
  • Now place the cake layer on the plate. Add a thin layer of buttercream on top of the cake, a thick layer only on the sides and lemon curd in the middle. Repeat the process until you're left with the last cake layer on top. Put the cake into the fridge for 15 minutes.
  • Take the cake out and cover the whole cake in buttercream. Add chocolate eggs or whatever you like on top and keep in the fridge for 5 hours or overnight (I recommend overnight!)
Keyword cake, layer cake, lemon