When you need a cake with wow factor, this is it. Light airy sponge, layered with lemon spiked creamy mascarpone and lemon curd, covered in a thick marshmallow-like mass of Italian meringue. It is as heavenly to eat as it is spectacular to look at.
Making your own lemon curd is optional here. You can buy really good curd these days, so feel free to just open a jar so there’s one less thing to do. If you choose to make it from scratch, this recipe makes more curd than you will need (you only need around 125ml – 1/2 a cup). Store leftovers in a jar in the fridge for a couple of weeks. It’s delicious simply spread on a piece of toast, or use it to make another recipe.
Unlike normal meringue, Italian Meringue is soft and resembles regular raw meringue in texture. But the hot syrup ‘cooks’ the egg whites as you beat the meringue, so there is no concern over eating raw egg. It is heavenly to eat, like a mouth full of melted marshmallows. The final scorching with the blow torch sets the exterior and gives it that that distinct toasted marshmallow flavour.
To make in advance, you can make all the components the day before, except the Italian meringue (it only holds for 3 hours), and store them separately until you’re ready to assemble. The cakes can be cooked, cooled and wrapped in cling-film and refrigerated for a day (or frozen for up to 3 months). The lemon mascarpone cream can be made a day ahead, and the lemon curd keeps for 2 weeks.
You will need a kitchen thermometer to make the meringue and a kitchen blow torch to toast it at the end.
Lemon Mascarpone Meringue Cake
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 C (350F).
- Grease and line the bottom of a 3 x 20cm ( 7 ¾ in) round cake tins. Grease the inside walls of the tins and add a few spoon-fuls of flour and tap and shake the tin so that the flour makes a coating on the inside. This flour on the inside gives the batter something to cling to and encourages it to rise.
- Put the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract into the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Beat with the whisk attachment until stiff and pale (around 8 minutes).
- Sift the flour, custard powder, corn flour and baking powder into a large bowl, then sift the mixture again, this time directly into the whipped egg mixture. Fold through gently.
- Evenly distribute the batter into the three cake tins and give them a few gentle taps on the bench to get rid of any air bubbles.
- Cook for 20 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Remove from the oven and immediately turn over onto a clean tea-towel with the tin still attached. Allow to sit for 5 minutes, then remove the tin and peel off the baking paper. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Place the mascarpone, rind and lemon juice into a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
- Add half the icing sugar and beat in until incorporated. Then add the remaining icing sugar and beat until thick and smooth.
- Refrigerate until needed.
- Place the whole eggs, yolks and sugar into a saucepan and whisk to combine.
- Turn heat on to low and add the butter, rind and lemon juice. Continue whisking until the mixture is smooth and thick.
- Strain through a fine sieve and pour into a jar. Refrigerate to cool.
- Place the egg whites into the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.
- Place the sugar and water into a small saucepan and turn the heat on to low. Stir until sugar is dissolved, then stop stirring, increase the heat and bring to the boil.
- Turn on the mixer and beat the egg whites until foamy and almost at soft peak stage.
- Make sure you keep an eye on the sugar syrup and as soon as it reaches 116 C ( 240F) on a candy thermometer, remove from the heat and immediately pour the hot syrup in a slow steady stream into the foamy egg whites, while mixer is on medium speed. Keep beating until the bowl feels cool to touch, around 8–10 minutes. The mixture should be thick, smooth and glossy.
- Use immediately or refrigerate for up to 3 hours.
- Once cakes are cool, trim the tops to remove the golden crust. Trim the base of one cake only (so it’s yellow on each end, but the other two still have their golden bases). Just slide a serrated knife across to take a straight, thin layer off. I do this so that you don’t see any brown lines through the layers once the cake is cut open.
- Place one cake down onto a serving plate, cut side up. Spread with half the lemon mascarpone cream, then spoon over around 4–5 tablespoons of lemon curd.
- Place the cake that you removed top and bottom layer off on top, Repeat with the remaining lemon mascarpone and lemon curd, then place the last cake on top, with the cut side down.
- Give it all a gentle pat and straighten it up so all the layers line up.
- Use a spatula or palette knife to dollop generous amounts of Italian meringue all over the sides and top of the cake, creating a free-form effect with peaks.
- Use a kitchen blow-torch to lightly toast the meringue. Serve
Notes
Recipe from my book – The Sweet Life, Home Baking and Sweet Treats Italian Style, New Holland Publishers Images – Locket Photography
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