Apparently ‘buttercream’ sounds like ‘Russell Crowe’. That’s how he heard it anyway, when he asked me one morning about the type of cake I was making. “Raspberry, coconut and buttercream”, I mumbled, half asleep, face pressed deeply into my pillow. He got the bit about raspberry and coconut, but was rather stumped as to what Russell Crowe had anything to do with it.

So anyway, not only are we rather lacking in the Russell Crowe department, but I’m forced to confess that I didn’t have the necessary raspberry jam either. I only realised this when it came time to assemble the cake, and resorted to what jams I did have lying around instead : a quince marmalade from Lynwood Cafe and a Fortnum & Mason rosepetal jam (which by the way travelled with me all the way back from London, and was so delicious that I was consuming it in small amounts to make it last longer).

In the absence of quite a few original key components (this includes Russell Crowe), what DOES this cake have going for it, in the end? Well, for starters, the coconut’s still there! But really, this cake is a dream. I love the closed crumb and the flavour that is buttery like a madeira cake, but with a texture as light as a sponge. Coming from someone who doesn’t normally like buttercream, this lemon flavoured buttercream was genius, I thought. The best I’d ever tasted. The amount of lemon was just right, allowing the acidity to cut the sweetness and richness of the buttercream, giving it a certain airy lemon curdy presence, without resorting to being a lemon curd, which might have been too full on for this delicate cake. The verdict? An absolutely gorgeous and incredibly easy to prepare party piece. One I hope to make again in the near future.

Thanks Morven for picking such a great recipe for us to play with this month! Now I wonder if anyone else managed to find Russell Crowe for their cake…

Perfect Party Cake :
(Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours)

For the Cake
2 ½ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
113g unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
340g unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing
2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 175’C. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half.
Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.
Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.
Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

[Note: I only used jam between the layers, as the boy is lactose intolerant. The buttercream I used to ice the outside of the cake only, so he had the option of scraping it off]

It’s time for Monthly Mingle #19 : Spring Fruit Sensations, hosted by Abby of Eat the Right Stuff and while it’s actually officially Autumn here in Australia, there are still some decent berries available in the shops. In fact, we’ve just started the major ordering for our big function at work, and for those suppliers we have been faxing instead of speaking to directly, it’s amusing to get callbacks from them because they can’t believe the amount of stuff we’re asking for. Is that really 55 litres of double cream on the order?? What the heck are you doing with 50kg of crabmeat? (And yes, we really do want 500 punnets of raspberries!)

Blueberries are my favourite berries. In the middle of Summer, when the price drops, I usually buy and eat as many as I can, preferably fresh, by the handful. Now, one last punnet remains in my fridge, and I thought I would cook with them for a change.

I was testing a recipe yesterday, for a lemon cake which I turned into a green tea (maccha) flavoured cake. Green tea is one of my favourite flavours. Jillian, an even bigger fan of the stuff, says it’s one of her favourite food groups! Initially this cake mix looked a bit dubious because it was very wet and took longer to bake than expected in the oven. However the end result, which with great impatience, I unmoulded and immediately tasted a spoonful of, surprised me by being truly delicious and moist, and, although not advertised, gluten free!

Let’s take tea, while these cakes are still warm!, I called out to B.

Oh yes, tea, marvelous idea, darleeng.

What to serve with the cakes though? ..Ah yes, a blueberry compote. Won’t take long. Should be ready by the time the tea is brewed :

Blueberry compote :

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
juice 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
125g blueberries (1 punnet)

Bring the sugar, water, lemon juice and vanilla to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil for 1 – 2 minutes until the liquid starts to look syrupy. Add the blueberries and cook for another 30 seconds – 1 minute. The colour from the berries will start to leach out into the sugar liquid, which is what you want. Pour this mixture into a dish to cool. When it has cooled down, the compote should be a nice saucey consistency. It is then ready to be served alongside a cake, pudding, or drizzled on top of vanilla ice-cream.

I drink your milkshake!

.. has got to be one of the best lines of dialogue, in a movie I’ve watched this year. This particular one spits forth from the lips of Daniel Day-Lewis, minutes before the strange Kubrick-like ending of There Will Be Blood. Coupled with an atmospheric score by Jonny Greenwood which is such an integral part of the movie (like Paul Thomas Anderson’s choice of music in Magnolia), it practically takes on a life of it’s own; this movie still has me thinking, long after I’ve watched it. B and I had a discussion about it afterwards and have decided that it’s even better than the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men, which was also a great movie.

That’s the plus about having a long weekend. You get to catch up on things like TV (the third series of Great British Menu – which incidentally I think Australia should do a version of. It’s very entertaining, and highlights chefs around the country you might not otherwise have heard of. Hopefully they’ll cut all the drawn-out fluff though, but I can’t see that happening), watching movies, and spending time in your kitchen. I’ve been doing a lot of cooking and baking over the past couple of days, and have discovered some recipe gems. Such as these little nuggets below.

They’re meant to be lentil rolls, but they turned out looking more like thick rusks. Not that I mind rusks. In fact, I quite like that word : rusks rusks rusks. Say it enough times, fast, and it starts to sound like Autumn leaves crushing under your feet (which also happens to be just the time of the year to be making these rolls). This evening, we dipped them in piping hot soups for what felt like a complete and wholesome meal. A mini virtuous hiatus in a lifetime of eating too many things we shouldn’t.

It also seems like perfect timing that this month’s Waiter There’s Something In My.. event, features pulses. I’d promised myself recently that I would start eating more beans, lentils, chickpeas and the like. Aside from being notoriously tootin’ fruitin’, they’re high in fibre and protein. I love them, when I can remember to eat them. If you’re not too partial to them, here’s a different way to put them into use :slip them into bread dough to hide them from your kids.. or yourself. Dan Lepard’s lentil rolls are easy to make, requiring the most minimal of kneading and fussing over. I’m not sure if my attempt turned out as well as I had visualised, but I’m still happy to tell everyone about them because what I did get, were sixteen small, light, moist and very delicious rolls flecked with brown lentils. So even if they might not look like they should, if they taste good, you should just roll with it, baby, roll with it.

Lentil rolls :
(from Dan Lepard’s The Art of Homemade Bread)

200g cooked Puy lentils, soft and drained
100g water at 20’C
1 tsp fresh yeast, crumbled
1 1/2 tbsp honey
200g bread flour
50g rye flour
3/4 tsp fine sea salt

Beat the cooked lentils with the water, yeast and honey, and leave to one side. In a large bowl combine the white and rye flours with the salt, then pour the yeast-liquid in. Mix until you have an evenly combined, soft and sticky dough. Scrape any dough from your fingers into the bowl, then cover and leave for 10 minutes.

Rub 1 tsp of corn or olive oil on the work surface and knead the dough on the oiled surface for 10 seconds, ending with the dough in a smooth, round ball. Clean and dry the bowl, then rub lightly with a tsp of oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover, and leave for an additional 10 minutes. Remove the dough and knead once more on the oiled surface, returning the shape of the dough to a smooth round ball. Place it back in the bowl, cover, and leave for 1 hour in a warm place (21-25’C).

Lightly flour the work surface and roll the dough into a sheet measuring 10 x 8 inch (25 x 20cm). Lay this sheet of dough on a tray lined with a flour-dusted cloth, then cover the surface of the dough with another cloth and leave for 1 hour, or until almost doubled in height.

Preheat the oven to 210’C. Uncover the dough and cut into 16 squares. Carefully lift the rolls up and place them on a flour-dusted baking sheet, ensuring that the edges do not touch. Bake in the center of the oven for 25 minutes, or until the tops of the rolls are golden brown and feel light.