Little Lemon & Elderflower Cakes

This recipe came about due to a couple of key points of inspiration - the Raco mini Cake tin pan from Red Kitchen, and the March edition of Taste magazine, which I devoured recently on a flight home from Wellington. Luckily it was another workmate's birthday - our dear 'Mama Tech' Ann - and I didn't have long 'till I had the chance to whip these up for her birthday shout.

The original recipe was for a Gin & Lemon cake from Kim Evans of Little & Friday fame. I made a few adjustments, resulting in Elderflower Syrup making its way into the lemon syrup you drizzle over the freshly cooked cakes instead of Gin ( gotta keep it a family show at work!).

My oh my...these were as good as they looked...if not better. Syrup cakes are usually pretty dense, but this was light and had a melt-in-your mouth texture. The cream cheese frosting has a lot less sugar than usual cream-cheese icings, but this makes it velvety smooth and decadent. I added some homemade Lemon Curd (from the Bluebell's Cakery book) and some Fresh-As freeze dried raspberries for decoration.

Handy tip - if you don't have individual cake moulds, use an empty tomato tin or baked beans tin - as long as it's not lined with plastic or anything. Simply take off the top and bottom, wrap tin foil around the bottom and sit on a tray - and voila! It works really well.

Little Lemon & Elderflower cakes

Makes 1 x 20cm cake or 15 mini-cakes.
Adapted from Kim Evans (Little & Friday Celebrations)

For the Cakes:

250g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
zest of 6 small or 4 large lemons
4 eggs
2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups ground almonds
1 cup buttermilk (or yoghurt, or sour cream)

Syrup:

1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice (pretty much the juice from your zested lemons)
6 Tbsp Elderflower Syrup

Cream Cheese Icing:

(you may wish to double these quantities if you are making a large cake to be iced on all sides)
80g unsalted butter, room temperature
250g Philadelphia cream cheese, fridge cold
zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted.

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Grease a 20cm cake tin and line the bottom and sides OR grease 15 individual cake moulds (or a Raco loose bottom Mini Cake pan - you can get yours here)
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and lemon zest until pale and fluffy (approx. 7 minutes at least). Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add ground almonds and mix to combine. Using a large metal spoon, fold half the dry ingredients, followed by half the buttermilk, into the creamed mixture, making sure not to overmix. Repeat with remaining dry ingredients and buttermilk.
4. Spread mixture into prepared tin or spoon into individual cake moulds. You want the individual cake moulds approx. 3/4ths fill.
5. Bake cakes in the centre of the oven - 1 hour 50 minutes for a single cake, or approx. 30 minutes for mini cakes, or until they bounced back when lightly pressed and a skewer comes out clean.
6. To make the syrup, heat sugar, water and lemon juice in a saucepan for approx. 4 minuted until sugar has dissolved. Stir in Elderflower syrup.
7. Remove cakes from oven and pour hot syrup over cake while still hot and in their pans. Leave for approx. 15 minutes, then remove from pans and allow to cool completely on a rack before icing with cream cheese icing.

To assemble:
1. To make cream cheese icing, using an electric mixer, beat butter and lemon zest on high speed until pale and creamy. Lower speed and add cream cheese in small chunks, then increase speed to high again and beat very well until completely combined, smooth and pale (approx. 5 minutes)
2. With mixer on low, add sifted icing sugar and then beat on high for another 5 minutes.
3. Using a piping bag if preferred, icing the tops of the cakes with a generous amount of cream cheese icing. Top with a spoonful of lemon curd and crushed freeze-dried raspberries.