Easter Cake/Birthday Cake

MY EASTER BIRTHDAY CAKE

A little late with my posting but this was the cake that I made for Easter and with a double celebration of my Birthday, so an Easter Birthday cake.

Lemon, Elderflower and White Chocolate Cake

I made this with 4 x 8" layer cakes.

Ingredients:

For the sponges:

450g butter
450g sugar
8 eggs
450g plain flour
4 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of salt
2 lemons (zest only)
8 tbsp elderflower cordial

For the lemon and elderflower syrup:

75ml elderflower cordial
25ml lemon juice
50g sugar

The filling was Swiss Meringue Buttercream and topped with white chocolate ganache.

To make the sponges:

Preheat your oven to 180 C, then grease and line your 4 x 8" cake tines with baking paper.
Place the butter in the bowl of a freestanding mixer and whisk until light and fluffy, around 5 mins, then add the sugar and continue to whisk until fully combined.
Weigh out the flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a separate bowl.
Then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly, you may need to add a few tablespoons of the flour mix if it does start to curdle.
Then gently fold in the flour mixture.
Add the elderflower cordial and continue to mix briefly until all the ingredients are combined.

Add the batter to the cake tins, weighing each one to make sure that they are all the same weight and bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the syrup:

Place the cordial, lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan, then set over a medium heat.  Slowly heat the syrup until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool.

One the cakes have been removed from the oven, leave them to cool for 5 minutes before turning out of the tins.

Once they are completely cooled, you can brush each layer with a bit of the syrup which will keep the cake moist.

Make the Swiss meringue buttercream and fill the layers.

Cover the top and sides with the white chocolate ganache.

I also made some fondant roses and leaves to the top for decoration.