OK.
Lemon-Ginger Cake
Cake
4 cups all purpose flour I used cake flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
5 teaspoons ground ginger
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups whole milk
2 1/2 Tablespoons (packed) finely grated lemon peel
8 large egg whites
If you really like ginger, you can very finely dice ~ a 1/4 to 1/3 cup crystallized ginger or preserved ginger in the food processor and add to the batter. That will add a significant zing! But you need to REALLy like ginger.
All ingredients should be at room temperature.
Use baking spray or butter to prepare 3 nine inch cake pans. Put rounds of parchment on the bottoms.
I use magicake strips so the layers come out level.
Place flour, sugar, ginger, baking powder, salt and lemon peel in a mixing bowl. Beat on medium for 2 minutes to mix thoroughly. Add softened butter and 1/4 to 1/3 of milk. Beat until thoroughly combined.
Add 1/2 egg whites, beat to combine. Add milk, beat to combine. scrape bottom of bowl. Add the rest of the egg whites, beat to thoroughly combine. Scrape bottom of bowl. Beat 30 seconds.
Divide batter evenly into the 3 prepared pans. Bake approx 25 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in cake comes out clean.
Lemon Curd
8 egg yolks
1 1/4 sugar
3/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 stick unsalted butter
pinch salt
1 Tablespoon finely shredded lemon zest
In a heavy noncorrodible saucepan beat the yolks and sugar until well blended. Don't use an aluminum pan-it will turn the curd a funky green. Stir in the remaining ingredients except the lemon zest. Cook over medium low to medium heat, stirring constantly, until resembling a thin hollandaise sauce. I use a smallish whisk. I wait until it is like a thin pudding. The mixture will change from translucent to opaque and begin to take on a yellow color on the back of a wooden spoon. I ignore the last sentence because I really can't see what she says. Maybe you can. It must not be allowed to boil or it will curdle. Whenever steam appears, remove briefly from heat, stirring constanly, to keep from boiling. When the curd has thickened, pour at once into a strainer. press with the back of a spoon until only coarse residue remains. Discard residue. Stir in the lemon zest and cool. Put into a bowl in the fridge and cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. The curd will continue to thicken while chilling. I will whisk or stir until very smooth before I use it.
Buttercream
My friend likes extra fluffy and soft buttercream. You can make a firmer buttercream by using fewer eggs and/or more butter.
6-8 whole eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2-3 cups (4-6 sticks...yes, this is death frosting. Clog your arteries.)
All ingredients need to be at room temperature.
In a large bowl (preferable on a stand mixer) beat the eggs on high speed until light in color and increased in volume by at least 3 times. Hopefully more. Meanwhile, combine sugar and water in a small saucepan and heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. The sugar syrup needs to boil until it reaches 238F on a candy thermometer, which is soft ball stage. Add to the just finished beaten eggs. This takes some timing. Add the hot syrup to the egg mixture while beating on high. Be careful not to get any on the beaters so you don't lose syrup or have it thrown around. It is very hot and really dangerous and will burn the hoohoo out of you. Once all the syrup is added, keep beating on medium until mixture is completely cool. Start adding butter by the 2 Tb until all used up OR until desired consistency is reached. It will look like a mess at first and then will start to solidify. You can also add up to 4 Tablespoons of liqueur or eau-de-vie of your choice. Sometimes if you just add 1 or 2 Tablespoons of Grand Marnier it will give a tiny bit of extra something that makes it better.
OK. To assemble the cake. Try to make sure your cake layers are as level as possible, so you might have to cut the domes off the tops of the cake layers. If you use Magicake strips this isn't an issue.
Take as much cold lemon curd as safely possible and spread on one of the layers. Take as much buttercream as safely possible and put on top of the curd. Use conservative judgement. Repeat with the second layer. Depending how lucky you feel, you can top the last layer with curd and then spread a thin coating of curd over the cake, effectively sealing it so you won't get crumbs in the frosting when you spread it - but you don't have to do this - you can go straight to frosting.
SOMETHING ELSE YOU CAN DO AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND is just dumping about a cup of room temp curd into the frosting, so you also have lemon frosting. That way you can skip the extra curd on the top and sides. It just seems easier to me because I usually get the curd mixed into the frosting anyway, and it looks kind of funky if you don't do it intentionally.
To try and make this somewhat healthier, you can make a 7 minute frosting or an Italian merigue and frost it with that instead of the buttercream. Something that looks incredibly impressive is to make a big batch of Italian merigue and just frost the heck out of the cake with it, piling it on top and adding big swirls and whatnot - and then browning in a hot oven for a few minutes. If you do this with plain white cake and lemon curd, you then have a lemon merigue cake!
I encourage you to read this carefully and if something doesn't seem right, or you think I may have left something out, please contact me or fix it if you know what happened. This was a lot to type and I was alo trying to add tips as well as just the recipe.
