This cake is in honour of all of those endless, bright, summery golden days. It is packed with ground almonds, fresh lemon, amaretti biscuit pieces, and apricots, and covered in dreamy vanilla bean cream cheese icing.
Recipe By The Caker
Ingredients
Cake
- 200g butter, softened
- 200g caster sugar
- zest of 2 lemons
- 4 free range eggs
- ½ tsp almond extract
- 150g ground almonds
- 100g plain flour
- pinch sea salt
- 65g lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
- 5-6 fresh or tinned apricots, sliced around 1.5cm thick
- ½ cup roughly crushed amaretti biscuits
Icing
- 150g butter, softened
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 100g cream cheese
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Decorations
- lemon curd
- rose petals
- crushed amaretti cookies
- freeze-dried lemon segments (optional)
- flowers (optional)
Method
Cake
Preheat the oven to 170ºC fan bake. Line 2 x 22cm cake tins with baking paper circles. To make the cake, in the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and zest until pale, light and fluffy.
Crack eggs into a clear container and check for shell before beating the eggs one by one into the butter mixture along with the vanilla. Gradually fold in the ground almonds, flour and salt and mix until just combined. Fold in lemon juice. Finally fold through crushed amaretti cookies.
Evenly divide the batter between the 2 cake tins and spread out to the sides. Dot in the apricot slices and press them down lightly into the batter. Bake for approximately 30 minutes. The cake is ready when golden in colour, springy to the touch, and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Allow the cake to cool for around 10 minutes in its tin before turning out onto a cooling rack.
Icing
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter by itself until smooth. Add the icing sugar and beat on high until seriously light and fluffy. Leave the mixer going for as long as possible!
Add the vanilla, then gradually add the cream cheese. Do not overdo this step.
