Lemon Meringue Cake

This week's Heavenly Cake is the Lemon Meringue Cake; Rose's take on the lemon meringue pie. I love the lemon, and I sorta like the meringue, so I was curious to see how I would like this cake.

Lemon Meringue Cake

August 1, 2010
Name of Cake: Lemony POW!
Occasion: HCB
Constituents: two layers biscuit soaked with a lemon syrup, filled with lemon curd, frosted with lemon italian meringue

This reminds me of the Triple Lemon Threat (the lemon luxury layer cake), which had lemon in all three components. That cake was good eatin. I have high hopes for this one too, except that I flaked on making the lemon curd and bought a jar at the store today. I thought I bought a good brand, but when I came home and opened the jar, it was only meh. A little too buttery for my tastes. Oh well. I am hoping that the rest of the cake will overpower the curd a bit.

This is the second cake I baked this weekend so I decided to just half the recipe. I know--first I only make a half recipe then I cheat and buy curd. So lazy.

There are several components to this cake but they are all pretty easy to do, especially if you cut corners and skip the making of the curd. Not that curd is hard to make, it is just a lot of standing and stirring and staring at the pot. It is well worth the standing and staring as homemade curd is delicious, and then you don't regret buying a mediocre jar of curd.

The cake component is a biscuit that is baked in two rounds. The original recipe calls for two 9 inch rounds but since I halved it I got to use my cute little 6 in cake pans. Interestingly, the pans get greased and floured then parchmented, which I suppose is to let the parchment get a good grip on the bottom of the cake. By its nature biscuit is tough and fairly flavorless and needs a liberal soak to make it worth eating--in order for the soaking liquid to easily penetrate, the top and bottom crusts are removed. Usually the bottom crust comes off with the parchment so long story long the pans are greased and floured but the parchment is not.

Lemon Meringue Cake

A biscuit is a sponge-type cake, which means the cake's rise comes mainly from very whipped eggs instead of baking powder or soda like in a butter cake. To this end, the egg yolks are whipped up with the sugar and in this case lemon zest until it falls from the beater in a thick ribbon. I like the ribbon stage of egg beating, so pretty.

The egg whites are whipped to stiff peaks separately and folded into the ribbon. All that's left is to scrape the thick batter into the pans and get them into the oven for 30 minutes. Biscuit need to be unmolded as soon as they are pulled from the oven, and left to cool upright.

While the cakes bake and cool, the lemon-sugar syrup is made. Sugar and water are brought to a boil and immediately covered and removed from heat. Once this cools the lemon juice is added. And, we're done.

Next up: the italian meringue. What makes this meringue all Italian and chic is the presence of a sugar syrup. This stabilizes the meringue and keeps it from watering out, which is gross. Nobody likes that.

The sugar, water, and lemon juice are brought to the hard ball stage and then poured into the already stiffly beaten egg whites. Rose advises pouring the syrup into a glass measuring cup to stop the cooking, and then pouring from the cup into the mixer. This way, if the syrup cools down too much before it gets mixed into the egg whites, you could simply nuke the cup and remelt the syrup. I don't have a nuker anymore so I left the syrup in the pan--I felt very rebellious--with the plan of reheating it on the stovetop if need be. Well there was no problem as the syrup is incorporated into the whites pretty quickly, and I was happy to put the clean measuring cup back into the cupboard.

Italian meringue is fascinating. The egg whites are already stiffly beaten and looking really good, but something happens to them when the hot sugar syrup is added. It doesn't necessarily get bigger and fluffier, but more glossier and fabulous. Kind of like a drag queen.

Lemon Meringue Cake

It looks like too much meringue for the cake, but just like the pie, all that fluff gets piled on top. I decided to try to copy the photo in the book and go for a flat top instead of a dome; I thought I could fool people into eating it if they didn't know just how thick a layer of meringue is on top. Most meringue is so damn sweet that people are afraid of it now.

I love billowy marshmallowy frosting. Not necessarily because of the taste, but because it is so much fun to frost. It is forgiving, fluffy, and willing to do whatever you want without melting, picking up crumbs, or giving you the finger and refusing. So I had fun frosting the cake with the chic meringue.

Lemon Meringue Cake

Lastly, Rose instructs you to stick your billowy frosted cake into a 500°F oven for a bit until the meringue looks nicely toasted. I had other things hogging up the oven so I busted out the tiny little butane torch and got to toasting. I burnt the frosting in places but I think I did ok.

By the time the cake was cooled, assembled, frosted and torched, it was past midnight and I needed to to go sleep. Curiously, usually anytime we syrup a cake we wait 24 hours before eating, so as to give the moisture and flavor time to evenly distribute. With this cake there's no mention of waiting, but I'm doing it anyway. We'll see how it tastes when I have it for breakfast tomorrow.

Lemon Meringue Cake

Breakfast tomorrow:
WOW, so lemony! It is delicious! The meringue isn't too sweet at all, and the tartness of the lemon keeps the cake from being too sweet. The biscuit is really moist, bordering on really wet. The curd has been bullied into tasting good by the rest of the components. The combination of the light biscuit and the italian meringue makes this dessert feel lighter than air.

Lemon Meringue Cake

This would be a great dessert for a summer party.  I shared a few slices with my friends Coleen and Cookie.  Coleen agreed that the cake was moist bordering on wet and thought it would have been better if she didn't feel like she needed to wring out the cake.  Cookie enjoyed the cake but felt it was too lemony for her tastes.  I think if you are a lemon lover this cake is a dream come true.

Lemon Meringue Cake
the high-top meringue reminds me of Kid. remember the early 90's?

Here's more photos....I couldn't decide which ones to post so I just dumped them all here :P

Lemon Meringue Cake

Lemon Meringue Cake

Lemon Meringue Cake

Lemon Meringue Cake

Lemon Meringue Cake

Lemon Meringue Cake

Comments

  1. Love this cake, love your pictures, love the post. "drag queen," indeed!

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  2. Your swirls are divine!

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  3. OMG... Love the swirls as well... and you did a good job "torching" the cake...

    I tasted the cake tonight (after 24 hours) and I still pucker up... Tom instead told me it's even better today than yesterday (that man is crazy!).

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  4. What beautiful photos!! Your cake looks delicious!

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  5. Beautiful cake! Love those swirls (yes it does look like a hairdo :)).

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  6. That's some classy brulee.

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  7. Beautiful cake; it makes me wish I hadn't wimped out on this one.

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  8. Gorgeous! Glossier and more fabulous like a drag queen... classic line! Hee!

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  9. Fun write up! I vote for the last photo. It's a work of art with the light shining through.

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  10. Marie, thanks!

    jkcurtis, thank you!

    Monica, thanks. I love the puckery lemon flavor! Tom may be crazy but he's also entertaining!

    faithy, thanks!

    Jenn, I had fun making those swirls. It took a few passes before I was happy with the look.

    Katya, why thanks!

    Lois, there's still time! If you are a lemon lover you really need to make this cake.

    Amanda, I'm glad you liked it! I think I will forever refer to italian meringue as the drag queen. It just sort of fits!

    Vicki, thanks! That's exactly what I liked about that shot--the light shining through the cake.

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  11. Anonymous3/8/10 00:52

    Your pictures are great! Are you thinking of turning professional or something? I agree with Vicki, that last one is SO GOOD.

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  12. Oh, look at your swishy swirls! Very pretty and fancy pants.
    I have not heard of Kid, so had to listen to the You Tube. I have a further hair likey cake comparison.
    A bobsey Irish duo called 'Jedward'.
    Google it and check it out... Yeh?
    I am one of those people who would hide this cake all for themselves, because I love lots of lemon flavour in my lemon cake.
    Nice lemon cake lap dance this week! You are my 'go to' girl for
    exotic cake dancing pictures!

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  13. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDAafDL1KiE

    This is a good link to show you Jedward.
    They are SO bad!

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  14. Oh Melinda, I was an innocent and happy creature until I saw the Jedward youtube video. I even tried to watch their live performance of Under Pressure and couldn't make it more than 30 seconds before turning away.
    I can't really blame you, but to wash out my brain I watched the bed intruder song again for the 30th time. Haha!

    P.S.: as a lemon lover you would love the lemon out of this cake. plus! biscuit is pretty easy to make GF, just sayin'

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  15. Anonymous, thank you! professional--haha. you are funny.

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  16. I think your cake is absolutely beautiful, and the photographs remarkable. I don't know what your friends think, but anything that turned out looking like that had to be super-special in consistency and flavor!

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  17. wow....what a great cake!! even if you did cheat on the curd, that meringue really make the cake, and I think using the torch was the right idea....it came out really good!
    I bet it tasted even better than it looked!

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  18. BSA, thanks! I still think about that meringue and how good it was.

    Chef, thank you! It was really delicious--more so than I thought!

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