Jaci Hicken, a seasoned journalist and trained chef, shares her wealth of knowledge on growing, cooking and preserving homegrown produce. In this edition, previous Jaci Can Cook columns come together to bake a lemon yogurt cake.
Over the past four columns, we have cooked lemon marmalade, lemonade lemon jelly, lemon curd and lemonade lemon leather.
Today, they are all coming together as a lemon yogurt cake, as an ingredient, used as a filling or garnish.
First, use the lemon marmalade to bake the cake.
Lemon yogurt cake recipe
Ingredients
3 eggs
1 * 250ml jar of lemon marmalade
300 grams of self-raising flour
320 grams of Greek yogurt
100 grams of olive oil
Method
- Preheat your oven to 180°C or 170°C if fan forced. Grease and line two 20cm cake tins.
- Place eggs in a bowl of a mixer with a whisk attachment. Whisk eggs until pale and creamy. Fold in lemon marmalade.
- Stir in flour, followed by the yogurt and olive oil, mixing gently until smooth.
- Pour the cake batter between the two lined cake tins, then place in the pre-heated oven.
- Bake for 45 minutes or until, when skewered, the skewer comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool in its tins before removing for filling and icing.
Now that we have baked the cake, let’s fill it with the lemonade lemon jelly and lemon curd, all smothered in yogurt cream cheese icing.
Yogurt cream cheese icing recipe
Take a 250g packet of cream cheese and whip it in a mixer. Sift over 150g of icing sugar and fold it in. Mix through one tablespoon of yogurt. Put the icing into a piping bag and refrigerate until needed.
To assemble lemon yogurt cake
- Slice each of your two cakes in half horizontally, so you have four layers of cake.
- Place the first layer of cake on a cake plate.
- Spread a tablespoon of lemonade lemon jelly on the first layer.
- Pipe a ring of yogurt cream cheese icing around the outside edge of the cake layer.
- Fill the centre of the icing with lemon curd, then lightly place the next layer on.
- Repeat the above steps for the following two layers of cake.
- Place the final layer on the top and spread over the remaining yogurt cream cheese icing.
- Garnish the top of the cake with slithers of lemonade lemon leather.
Even though patience is always the most crucial part of cooking, I wasn’t patient between layers and the whole cake collapsed on itself.
The layers of jelly, icing and curd spewed from the cake as it tried to topple over.
The only option was to hold it together with wooden skewers and wait to see if, after all this work, the cake could be saved.
Stay tuned for the next edition of Jaci Can Cook to see if Jaci can save the lemon yogurt cake.
If you have a ‘how to save the cake’ tip for Jaci, share it with her at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au.