lemon curd sponge cake with buttercream roses.

With my Mum's birthday being in March, it often falls very close to Mother's Day. For this reason, I always like to make sure I do separate birthday and Mother's Day things to show doubly how much I care. So last weekend we all got together for an afternoon tea party - complete with an abundance of tea, sandwiches and a very pink vintage inspired cake! 

Cake decorating is something I'm really interested in but would like to improve on - so hope you enjoy reading about my creation as much as I loved making it!

Shopping list
For the lemon curd cake

♥ 260g self raising flour

♥ 260g caster sugar, softened at room temp
♥ 260g unsalted butter
♥ 4 eggs
♥ Zest of two lemons
♥ Lemon curd

For the lemon buttercream
♥ 200g softened butter
♥ 500g icing sugar 
♥ zest of two lemons
♥ a dash of milk
♥ Pink food colouring
♥ Piping bag with a medium star shape nozzle

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees c, gas mark 4.

For the sponge, mix the caster sugar and butter until combined. Next crack in the eggs one by one and lastly fold in the flour with a metal spoon or cake mixer.

Add in the lemon zest from the first two lemons.

Pour the cake mixture into a pre-greased cake tin (8" diameter) and bake for 45 minutes. Check at around 30 minutes but don't open the oven door.

Allow to completely cool on a wire rack. You could make a day ahead and keep in an airtight tin to save the stress of waiting for the cake to cool in prep for the deco on the day!

Next up - the lemon curd and buttercream filling!

I began by mixing up the buttercream from icing sugar and butter; adding a little milk to ease the whisking.

I wanted to fill my cake with lemon curd and non flavoured buttercream. So I sliced the cake in half and firstly spread over a layer of lemon curd.

I followed this up with a little buttercream from the mixing bowl. I hadn't added lemon at this point as I didn't want to overpower with all the citrus flavours going on. Sort of looks like lemon meringue pie, hey? 

I put the "lid" back on and went on to make the outer buttercream icing a lot more pink and lemony!

I first added the lemon zest of the other two lemons and whisked in.

Next cue the sugarflair pink colour concentrate! You may remember this from my heart shaped millionaire's shortbread! :)

Just add a drop at a time (I use a cocktail stick) until you've achieved the desired shade. Firstly I wanted to ensure the cake would be fully covered - so I used a palette knife to roughly cover the whole cake. We all know rustic is my style!

Then, fill up a piping bag with the star shaped nozzle and elastic band to secure.

Swirl away like you might ice cupcakes. I began from the outside of the "roses" and swirled into the centre. Again something that can look quite rustic and hopefully still pretty.

In the end I was really pleased with the look of the cake and stopped with the top. I think it'd be lovely to try a cake covered in roses around the sides too though - perhaps a white or cream one?

How adorable are these? I bought them from eBay for about £3 .Just pop on the top and all together now... "Haa-aaappy birthdaaay..."

As I said this was part of an birthday afternoon tea, which I'll be sure to blog about soon. If there aren't any girly birthdays coming up, perhaps you could make this for the lady in your life this Mother's Day?

PS, probably just as well I didn't ice the whole cake - look at how thick the buttercream is on that slice!