Lemon Cake with Chia Seeds

When it comes to Chia seeds, I am still on a voyage of discovery and experimentation. I read how healthy they are and therefore intend to use them as an ingredient in my food as often as possible. I have already tried them out in a few simple recipes (I will post them soon) but what I really wanted to do was to bake a cake with this novelty ingredient.

Chia reminds me a bit of poppy seed so I used it in a lemon cake as a substitute for poppy seeds. The cake turned out delicious: very moist with crunchy little bits. And although I do realize this is not the healthiest cake in the world (I tried to use healthy rapeseed oil instead of butter but it didn’t work), I am sure that adding chia seeds certainly made it healthier.

INGREDIENTS (for 8 portions):

175g butter, in room temperature,

175g sugar,

200g flour,

2 tsp baking powder,

Zest from 3 lemons,

2 tbsp lemon juice,

3 eggs,

100g Greek yoghurt,

2 tbsp chia seeds,

Icing:

100g icing sugar,

1 tbsp + 1tsp lemon juice.

METHOD:

1. Preheat an oven to 180 Celsius Degrees (160 for fan ovens).
2. Put a disk of parchment paper on the bottom of a round 18cm-diameter cake tin and grease its side.
3. Beat the butter and sugar till fluffy, add the rest of the cake ingredients and beat until everything is well combined.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the hot oven for 50-60 minutes (when a wooden stick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, the cake is ready).
5. Cool down the cake at first in the tin and after 10 minutes on a wire rack.
6. Prepare the icing by mixing the icing sugar with the lemon juice, pour it over the cake.

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Lemon Meringue Roulade

I do realize that some people may think that I must have made a mistake in the above recipe name. I thought exactly the same when many years ago my mother-in-law mentioned that she was going to make it for dessert. Lemon meringue or lemon roulade sounded fine (and doable!) to me but Lemon Meringue Roulade? How was she even going to roll the fragile and easily crushable meringue into a roulade?!

This conundrum was solved pretty quickly when I found out this version was baked in a slightly higher temperature but for a much shorter time. As a result, instead of having a crispy and feather-like, you end up with a soft and cloud-like meringue that can be pretty easily rolled.

The filling for the roulade matches it perfectly: combination of whipped cream and lemon curd (bought or made from this recipe) makes it a wonderful, airy dessert. It feels very light but - let’s face it – it is pretty heavy in calories. So be aware as it is easy to have a lot of it: recently my husband had 1/3 of it in one go ;)

INGREDIENTS (for 8-10 portions):

6 egg whites,

160g caster sugar,

1 tsp white wine vinegar,

1 tsp potato starch,

0.5 tsp vanilla extract,

icing sugar for dusting,

250ml double cream,

3-5 tbsp lemon curd (for homemade version, check this recipe).

METHOD:

1. Preheat an oven to 160 Celsius degrees (top and bottom heating).
2. Line an approximately 25cm x 37cm baking tray with parchment paper.
3. Whisk the egg whites till stiff; continue whisking and add 1 tbsp of sugar, beat for 10-20 seconds more and add another 1 tbsp of sugar, continue until you have used all the sugar.
4. Beat in the vanilla extract, vinegar and potato starch.
5. Spread in the prepared tin, put to the oven and bake for 20 minutes till golden.
6. Remove from the oven and cool down for a few minutes.
7. Whip the cream till stiff; stir in the lemon curd.
8. Generously sprinkle with icing sugar a big piece of parchment paper (bigger than the baked meringue base) and carefully flip the meringue upside down.
9. Gently peel off the paper and spread the lemon filling on top, leaving out a margin of approx. 5 cm on one of the longer sides.
10. Using the paper to help you, roll the roulade carefully along the shorter side.

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Lemon Curd

Many years ago when I saw jars of lemon curd in an English shop for the first time, I had no idea what it was and how it could be used. This type of a preserve simply wasn’t known in Poland at that time. Later I learnt lemon curd was a popular ingredient for an afternoon tea in England served with scones or as a filing for pastries. I also found out from my mother-in-law another way of using it but I will write about it in my next post ;)

Years passed by and lemon curd is available in some shops in Poland now but a few weeks ago when I needed it, I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I decided to give it a go and make it myself. I did a little research, found many recipes and at the end combined a few of them to create one pretty simple and 100% successful formula.

INGREDIENTS (for approx. 350ml):

2 eggs,

2 egg yolks,

165g caster sugar,

2 lemons, zest and juice,

80g cold butter, cut into a few pieces.

METHOD:

1. Take a heat-proof bowl and choose a saucepan that is the right size to securely put the bowl into it (there has to be a few cm gap between their bottoms).
2. Pour water to the saucepan (a few cm) and bring to boil.
3. Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and sugar in the bowl until the mixture is thick and pale.
4. Stir in the lemon zest and juice.
5. Put the bowl over the saucepan of boiling water, decrease the heat to medium and stir the mixture (at first often and after 3-4 minutes constantly) with a wooden spoon until it is thick (it will take approx. 5-7 minutes).
6. Remove the bowl from the saucepan, add the butter, one piece at a time and stir the mixture till it is smooth.
7. Strain through a sieve into a sterilized jar, cool down and put to a fridge.
8. It can be kept in the fridge up to a week.

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