This Lemon and Blueberry Layer Cake is moist, zesty and sweet. It's the ideal cake for May bank holiday and the start of spring. Get the recipe and get in the kitchen!
Baking for Spring
"Procrastibaking." No it's not a word I made up.
According to urban dictionary it means "the practice of baking something in order to put off doing something else you need to do." It is something that I am definitely guilty of and when I should be tidying the house, doing laundry, and other boring chores the first thing I do is bake.
I made this over the May Day bank holiday. Jon had taken himself off to the pub to watch a game of football and I found myself stuck indoors on a wet and windy day. There were a whole host of things I could've done instead of baking but the kitchen called. I decided as it was May Day on the Monday I should probably bake something to celebrate spring!
Lemon and Blueberry
Lemon and blueberry seemed liked the perfect flavour combination for the bank holiday. The sponge is light, flavoured with just a little lemon zest and vanilla. The layers are sandwiched together with a blueberry compote and the buttercream is given a wonderful sour tang with fresh lemon juice.
I would have loved to have been able to top the cake with fresh blueberries but they're not yet in season. We have a big blueberry bush in our garden which is going to be covered in blueberries come the summer. It's so exciting seeing the flours turn into berries.
Lemon and blueberry is such a classic flavour combination you can be sure that I'll be making lots of exciting recipes when my blueberries are finally ripe. Just check out these other lemon and blueberry bakes from the blog in the past.
Get the look
The icing
To make this cake a real celebration of spring it had to be decorated with flowers. I wanted to stick to yellow and blue to represent the lemons and blueberries so I made a big batch of lemon flavoured buttercream and then separated it out into bowls to colour.
I kept most of the buttercream uncoloured. Butter in the UK is very yellow to begin with so buttercream is always a pale yellow rather than white. I used this as my base. The rest I coloured varying shades of blue (though some of the paler shades look a little more green.)
I then took 3 icing bags, with 3 different nozzles and filled them with the buttercream.
- #1 - Pale Blue / Green - Wilton 1M
- #2 - Blue - Wilton 4B
- #3 - Dark blue - Wilton 2D
To get these colours I used the Royal Blue Wilton gel food colouring. The palest shade was made with a tiny amount of gel off of the end of a toothpick. The blue used maybe 2 or 3 toothpicks of gel and the dark blue was made with gel from the end of a teaspoon. I'd recommend adding as little as possible to begin with and adding more until you get the desired colour. You can't take the colour away after you've added it!
The flowers
For the "design" if you can call it that I started by piping one large rose in the centre left of the cake with the Wilton 1M. I then did two slightly smaller roses above and below. I then used the blue icing with the Wilton 4B tip to pipe clusters around the roses. Finally I used the dark blue icing with the Wilton 2D to to pipe drop flowers in the gaps. A few blue, green and purple sprinkles added the finishing touches.
Adding real cut flowers from the garden also added a fun touch to make this cake a real celebration of spring!
Of course you could use this deign to decorate any cake with any combination of colours that takes your fancy. You also don't have to use Wilton nozzles though they are my favourite. As long as you have a few different sized open and closed star tips you'll get the same effect.
The Lemon and Blueberry Layer cake Recipe
I wish I'd taken a photo of the cake sliced but as ever once the cake was cut it got eaten pretty quickly! Once you've made this recipe you'll understand why.
Lemon and Blueberry Layer Cake
Equipment
- Cake tins
- piping bag
- Icing nozzles
Ingredients
For the cake
- 300 g butter
- 300 g caster sugar
- 6 eggs
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 lemon zest only (juice used below)
- 300 g self raising flour
For the icing
- 350 g butter
- 450 g icing sugar
- 1 lemon juice only
For the filling
- 125 grams blueberry jam
For the decoration
- Sprinkle and fresh flowers optional
Instructions
To bake the cake
- Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (160 C), and line three 7 inch cake tins with grease proof paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the butter and the sugar until soft.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time and beat well until the mix is creamy and pale.
- Cut the vanilla pod in half and scrape out the seeds into the bowl along with the lemon zest then mix until combined.
- Sift the flour into the bowl and fold through until the flour is fully incorporated.
- Pour the cake mix into three separate cake tins and bake for 35 mins until springy to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out on to a cooling rack.
To assemble and decorate
- Once the cakes have cooled completely, it's time to make the buttercream.
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter, icing, and lemon juice.
- Place ¾ of the icing into a large piping bag with a big round open nozzle.
- Divide the rest between 3 bowls and colour 3 different shades of blue. Place into 3 different icing bags with different star tips.
- Using some of the plain icing as "glue" place the bottom cake layer onto a cake board.
- Pipe a ring of icing around the top edge of the layer.
- Cover the rest of the top of the layer with blueberry compote.
- Place the second layer on top and repeat the ring of icing with blueberry compote filling.
- Put the final layer on top.
- Crumb coat the cake making sure you have a smooth base coat and all gaps between the layers are full.
- Use the remaining plain icing to cover the cake completely with a smooth finish.
- Take the 3 coloured icing bags and start by piping roses then clusters of the smaller flowers.
- Finish with sprinkles or fresh flowers if desired.
Nutrition
You can of course make your own blueberry compote but until blueberries are in season I'll be getting mine out of a jar!
More Spring recipes
Why not try some of these other Spring recipes which celebrate the changing of the seasons and welcome in Spring.
Veena Azmanov says
I love the sound of lemon and blueberry in my cake.. This sounds so delicious. Can't wait to try.
Emma Walton says
Thanks Veena
Anya says
Lemon and blueberry is so good together. Love the beautiful cake decoration.
Emma Walton says
Thanks Anya!
fiona saluk says
I love the combination of lemon and bleuberry! I am in complete awe of your icing design - I'm nowhere near competent with flowers so I'll have to practice before I can make a cake look like yours! Definitely going to try out the cake recipe though - thanks!
Emma Walton says
The beauty of this Fiona is that it requires little skill!
For the roses just pipe a swirl going from inside to out.
For the other two you just hold your icing bag upright, squeeze a little and let go.
Job done! 😀
Sarah @ Champagne Tastes says
I admit... I've never procrastibaked.. in fact, I procrastinate so that I don't have to bake! Lol. This cake looks delicious though- maybe you can bake and I can get our work done haha!
Emma Walton says
Sarah we must be complete opposites 😛
Sandhya Hariharan says
What a gorgeous looking cake it is!! and the overwhelming flavours can have me dig the whole cake in a go.
Emma Walton says
Thanks Sandyha. My sister said it was the tastiest cake I've ever made!
Lisa | Garlic & Zest says
I'm a professional procrastibaker! Paying bills? Banana nut bread. Working out? Brownies. Writing a blog post? Def cookies! Thank you for defining the mantra that is my life.
Emma Walton says
Hahaha glad I'm not the only one Lisa 😀 we should set up a support group for procrastibakers.
Elizabeth says
My entire blog was created due to procrastibaking while I should have been working on Open University assignments, lol! What a gorgeous cake this is!
Emma Walton says
Haha mine too Elizabeth! I started mine during my second year of uni 🙂 thanks for the lovely comments xx
Helen @ family-friends-food.com says
I love lemon and blueberry, they compliment one another so well. And I'm in awe of your cake decoration skills - when I throw something together to pass time on a Sunday it never looks like that!!
Emma Walton says
Thanks Helen you're too kind! The more I want to procrastinate the more intricate the cake decorating gets!! HA!
Jemma @ Celery and Cupcakes says
This is such a gorgeous cake! I love the way you've decorated it and the colours that you've used.
Laura@howtocookgoodfood says
I was thinking about making a cake with lemon & blueberries and having seen yours I'm loving the gorgeous way you have decorated it and the colours are perfect together. Thanks for all the tips about nozzles, I love the Wilton brand, they do really work and you have shown us that!
Amy says
Can provide how you make your self rising flour? I lice in New York and It differs depending on where you live and I want to try this recipe
Emma Walton says
Hi Amy
I'm afraid self raising flour is a type of flour that you just buy in the UK, you don't make it. If I was to use plain flour instead I would add 1tsp of baking powder. I hope that helps.