Every summer my friend Dorothy's brother Joe and his family come to D.C. for a visit from London. It's a treat for me to be able to spend time with them and share some baked goods. Last summer I even gave Dorothy's niece a baking lesson where we made the Best-Ever Chocolate Nutella Layer Cake from Sweetapolita. I figured that Joe and his wife would be familiar with Yotam Ottolenghi and thought a recipe from Ottolenghi's cookbook Sweet would be appropriate for this year's visit.
I've been wanting to try the recipe for the Lemon and Blackcurrant Stripe Cake since I got the cookbook. I almost made a cranberry version for our holiday party last year but I ran out of time. The cake is striking and a real beauty. It's a roll of spongecake and fruit buttercream that is turned on its end and frosted all over such that it looks like a normal cake. But cutting into it reveals the dramatic vertical stripes inside. While the recipe is written to be made with blackcurrants, I have never seen blackcurrants for sale in this area (although red and champagne currants are available at farmer's markets in the summer). The suggested substitution is mixed berries, so I used a mix of equal weights of blueberries and raspberries.
I scaled up the recipes for both the cake and buttercream. The cake is supposed to be baked in a 40 cm by 32 cm pan, which is roughly 15.75 inches by 12.5 inches. I have a lot of baking pans, but nothing that precise size or with an equivalent area. The closest thing I have is a half-sheet baking pan, which is approximately 18 inches by 13 inches. To account for the slightly larger pan I was using, I scaled up the cake recipe by 12.5%. This was actually a lot easier than it might sound because the recipe uses 8 eggs, so increasing it by 12.5% means adding precisely one more egg. And because all of the other ingredient measurements are provided in metric weights (at least in my British version of the book), it was no problem to increase all of the other ingredients accordingly.
After getting out my calculator and figuring out the required amounts for the remaining ingredients, I made the fatless sponge by whisking egg yolks with sugar and lemon juice until pale and thick; folding in sifted flour and salt; and gently incorporating lemon zest and egg whites that had been beaten with sugar to firm peaks. I poured the batter into my parchment-lined baking sheet and baked the cake until golden.
I let the cake cool for 5 minutes, dusted the top with powdered sugar; turned out the cake onto a clean dishtowel and peeled off the parchment; trimmed off the cake edges; rolled up the cake inside the towel; and left the rolled cake in the towel until it was cool.
The frosting is a French buttercream that has fruit puree added. The fruit puree is simply the berries (or blackcurrants) cooked with a little sugar until softened; blended smooth, and put through a sieve. My blueberry-raspberry puree was dark bluish purple and incredibly delicious. As it cooled, it thickened to a gel-like consistency, but a bit of stirring loosened it right up. I scaled up the buttercream by 25% because it calls for four egg yolks and I thought it would be easiest just to add another yolk and increase the amounts of all of the other ingredients proportionately. You whisk the yolks until pale; add a mixture of sugar, golden syrup, and vanilla seeds that has been brought to a rolling boil; whisk the mixture until cooled; gradually add softened butter; and add some of the fruit puree. The buttercream was a beautiful pale purple.
To assemble the cake I unrolled the cooled cake that was inside the dishtowel; cut the cake lengthwise into three equal strips; spread buttercream on each piece; and rolled up the strips of frosted cake into one large roll. The cake was easy to handle and I didn't have any problems with cracking. Then I turned the roll on its end and frosted the sides and top of the cake. In the photos in the cookbook, fruit puree is spread over the top of the cake and drips artfully down the sides. But I had some extra buttercream (not surprising, since I had scaled up the frosting recipe more than the cake recipe), so I piped borders around the top and bottom edges of the cake and the puree I spread on top of the cake was neatly contained inside the border. My finished cake was about seven inches across and four inches tall. It was small, but it turned out to be the perfect size to feed the seven adults and four children present, with no leftovers -- although I also served a batch of homemade Biscoffs to ensure that no one went hungry!
This cake was truly special. The sponge cake was delightfully springy and the buttercream tasted like fruity butter. If I had one complaint, it was that the buttercream was awfully buttery -- but it was bright and beautifully flavored and it tasted amazing. Every last crumb was devoured. I highly recommend this cake. Its bold vertical stripes and beautiful fruit flavor leave an outsize impression that belies its small size.
Recipe: "Lemon and Blackcurrant Stripe Cake" from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, recipe available here (sadly, without metric weighs) at today.com.
Another great rolled cake: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Stump de Noël," December 31, 2012.
Previous baked goods for Dorothy's brother and his family:
I've been wanting to try the recipe for the Lemon and Blackcurrant Stripe Cake since I got the cookbook. I almost made a cranberry version for our holiday party last year but I ran out of time. The cake is striking and a real beauty. It's a roll of spongecake and fruit buttercream that is turned on its end and frosted all over such that it looks like a normal cake. But cutting into it reveals the dramatic vertical stripes inside. While the recipe is written to be made with blackcurrants, I have never seen blackcurrants for sale in this area (although red and champagne currants are available at farmer's markets in the summer). The suggested substitution is mixed berries, so I used a mix of equal weights of blueberries and raspberries.
I scaled up the recipes for both the cake and buttercream. The cake is supposed to be baked in a 40 cm by 32 cm pan, which is roughly 15.75 inches by 12.5 inches. I have a lot of baking pans, but nothing that precise size or with an equivalent area. The closest thing I have is a half-sheet baking pan, which is approximately 18 inches by 13 inches. To account for the slightly larger pan I was using, I scaled up the cake recipe by 12.5%. This was actually a lot easier than it might sound because the recipe uses 8 eggs, so increasing it by 12.5% means adding precisely one more egg. And because all of the other ingredient measurements are provided in metric weights (at least in my British version of the book), it was no problem to increase all of the other ingredients accordingly.
After getting out my calculator and figuring out the required amounts for the remaining ingredients, I made the fatless sponge by whisking egg yolks with sugar and lemon juice until pale and thick; folding in sifted flour and salt; and gently incorporating lemon zest and egg whites that had been beaten with sugar to firm peaks. I poured the batter into my parchment-lined baking sheet and baked the cake until golden.
I let the cake cool for 5 minutes, dusted the top with powdered sugar; turned out the cake onto a clean dishtowel and peeled off the parchment; trimmed off the cake edges; rolled up the cake inside the towel; and left the rolled cake in the towel until it was cool.
The frosting is a French buttercream that has fruit puree added. The fruit puree is simply the berries (or blackcurrants) cooked with a little sugar until softened; blended smooth, and put through a sieve. My blueberry-raspberry puree was dark bluish purple and incredibly delicious. As it cooled, it thickened to a gel-like consistency, but a bit of stirring loosened it right up. I scaled up the buttercream by 25% because it calls for four egg yolks and I thought it would be easiest just to add another yolk and increase the amounts of all of the other ingredients proportionately. You whisk the yolks until pale; add a mixture of sugar, golden syrup, and vanilla seeds that has been brought to a rolling boil; whisk the mixture until cooled; gradually add softened butter; and add some of the fruit puree. The buttercream was a beautiful pale purple.
Recipe: "Lemon and Blackcurrant Stripe Cake" from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, recipe available here (sadly, without metric weighs) at today.com.
Another great rolled cake: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Stump de Noël," December 31, 2012.
Previous baked goods for Dorothy's brother and his family:
- "Wibbly Wobbly Cram: French Strawberries and Cream Cake," July 23, 2016.
- "Hot or Not?: Red Hot Velvet Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream," August 11, 2015.
- "Gonna Top a Tart with a Butterfinger: Butterscotch Pudding Tarts," August 9, 2015.
- "Cake for the Kids: Blueberry Fruit Financier," August 8, 2014.
- "Serving This Cake Is a Royal Pain: Victoria Sponge," July 25, 2013.
Comments