St. Clement’s Cake – a cake with a citrus twist…

Strictly speaking, I suppose a St Clement’s Cake should combine the flavours of oranges and lemons. However, I’ve used a bit of imagination and, as the zingy flavours of all citrus fruits go very well together, I’ve made a lime flavoured sponge cake with some lemon curd to use as the filling. I’ve also used lime flavoured buttercream for some of the layers. You could of course vary the citrus flavours, for example an orange cake with lemon curd or a lemon cake with lime curd! Ideally, make the curd the day before so that it will be ready to use when you need it.

For the lemon curd you will need:

1 large juicy lemon (or 2 small – you will need 4 fl oz of juice)

75g of caster sugar

2 large free range eggs

50g butter, cut into small pieces

Method:

• measure the sugar into a heat proof bowl and grate the rind of the lemon onto the sugar
• in a jug, lightly whisk together the eggs and the juice of the lemon then pour this mixture onto the sugar and lemon rind
• sit the heat proof bowl on top of a pan of gently simmering water, add the cubed butter, and stir everything gently together.

• As the mixture starts to heat through the butter will melt into the other ingredients and the curd will slowly begin to thicken
• after about 15 – 20 minutes, the curd should have thickened sufficiently
• remove the bowl from the heat, pour the lemon curd into a sterilised jam jar and leave it to one side to cool

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For the cake you will need:

5 free range eggs

300g of self raising flour

300g of caster sugar

300g of softened butter

the rind of 2 limes

the juice of 1 lime

Method:

• grease and base line 2 x 9″ sandwich tins
• preheat the oven to 160°C (fan) or 180°C (non-fan)
• put all of the ingredients into a roomy mixing bowl and beat everything together until well combined, smooth and creamy

• divide the mixture between the prepared tins and bake for about 50 minutes, or until the cakes are golden and well risen. A skewer inserted into the cakes should come out clean with no wet cake mix sticking to it
• leave the cakes on a wire rack to cool completely before removing from their tins

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I decided to make some lime butter icing to sandwich some of the layers of my cakes together. For this I used:

200g of icing sugar

100g of softened butter

the juice of ½ a lime

a dash of warm water

Just measure everything into a bowl and beat them together until the icing is a smooth and creamy consistency.

To assemble the cake:

• remove the cooled cake from their tins
• slice each of the cakes in half across the middle so that you end up with 4 cake layers
• if you wish you could use lemon curd only to sandwich the layers together, but I used the lime buttercream for two of the layers and lemon curd for one
• after spreading the fillings on the layers, place the layers one on top of another
• sprinkle the top of the cake with a dusting of icing sugar