| Lemon ginger cake with lemon cream cheese icing |
For the cake
| 2 cups | sugar |
| 170g | butter |
| 4 | large eggs |
| 3 tablespoons | fresh lemon juice |
| 3 teaspoons | grated lemon peel |
| 1 teaspoon | vanilla extract |
| 3 cups | self-raising flour |
| 1 tablespoon | ground ginger |
| 1 teaspoon | baking powder |
| 1 teaspoon | baking soda |
| 3 teaspoons | ground cinnamon |
| 1.25 cups | buttermilk |
| small handful | chopped glace ginger (optional) |
For the icing
| 310g | cream cheese, at room temperature |
| 225g | unsalted butter, at room temperature |
| 3 tablespoons | fresh lemon juice |
| 3 teaspoons | grated lemon peel |
| 1 teaspoon | vanilla extract |
| 4.75 cups | icing sugar (soft icing mixture), sifted |
Cake
Preheat oven to 180C. Line two 9-inch diameter cake pans with Gladbake.
Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs one at a time,beating well after each addition. Mix in lemon juice, lemon peel and vanilla
(mixture may look curdled - don't worry). Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda into a medium bowl; add to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions each, beginning with the dry ingredients.
Divide batter equally between prepared pans. Bake until golden brown and tester inserted into centre of cakes comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Transfer pans to racks, cool 10 minutes. Using a small knife, cut around edge of pans to loosen cakes. Turn cakes out onto racks, peel off paper, and cool completely.
Icing
Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, lemon peel and vanilla in a large bowl until smooth. Add icing sugar gradually and beat until smooth.
Ice cakes. You can either have them as two separate cakes, or pile them on top of one another with icing in between for a tall cake. If you decide to do them separately, you can slice each cake in two and ice between the layers that way - this recipe makes a *lot* of icing.
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