"You are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine..."

With a week of clouds and most likely rain in the forecast (although one can not always trust the forecast), I find myself wanting lemony things. A lemon sponge cake rolled up with lemon curd and raspberry jam to be specific. Not many things lighten up a dreary day better than a bright tart creamy cool lemon curd. Yum. I'm also very much in need of a break from wedding stuff (the majority is all set, we are down to the little things now) and baking is a perfect way for me to think of other things.

Now, before I get started with the recipe, I do want to apologize for my very slack amount of posting here. I hope to get myself back into the habit of posting once a week or so. I recently started teaching myself to knit, and I must admit that is taking up a lot of finger time that could be spent typing and baking! Ok, that's enough excuses for one post...on to the recipe for brightness! Both the lemon curd and the sponge cake recipe are from the book The Art of Fine Baking by Paula Peck. It is a book I have wanted to experiment with for a long long time, but for some reason (too many other books) I have failed to get to it until now.

Lemon Curd (this should be made a few hours before you want to make the cake, or can be made even a few days ahead as it keeps well in the refrigerator)

5 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 large lemons, juice and finely minced rind (I prefer meyer lemons, but as I don't have any at the moment, regular lemons will have to do)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
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-In a heavy saucepan, combine yolks and sugar over low heat. Add lemon juice and rind. Stir, adding butter a little bit at a time. Cook until thick, stirring constantly. Strain into a bowl or other container, press plastic wrap over the surface and chill until set. This lemon curd turned out beautifully and was nice and tart, I will be filing this one under "keepers".


Basic Sponge Sheet

4 eggs, separated
pinch of salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla (I also added 1 Tbsp finely minced lemon rind)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup sifted all purpose flour
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-Heat oven to 400f. Grease an 11x16" jelly roll pan and line with parchement paper, lightly grease the parchement.
-Beat egg whites with the salt until they hold soft peaks. Gradually beat in sugar, sprinkling it in a tablespoon at a time. Continue to beat until the whites are very firm, about 5 min.
-stir yolks with a fork to break them up, add vanilla. Fold 1/4 of the egg whites into the yolks thoroughly to lighten the mixture. Pour the egg yolk mixture on top of the remaining egg whites, sprinkle the cornstarch and flour over the mixture and fold all together gently by hand. Fold until no bits of egg white show, be careful not to overmix.
-Pour into prepared pan, spread evenly. Bake 10 minutes or until very lightly browned (try not to overbake). Loosen sides of cake immediately and turn cake out onto a towel liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar. The cake should be flexible. I think this cake would also be awesome in petit fours, and will probably try that sometime in the future.

For assembly you will also need one jar of raspberry jam, I like seedless, but that's up to you. If you are lucky enough to have home made jam or jelly by all means use that, I never got around to making any raspberry jam last year, perhaps this year I'll be able to make some.

Spread the cake with a thin layer of raspberry jam, leaving about one inch at the bottom of it lengthwise (or if you want a thicker cake roll leave the one inch at the bottom of it widthwise). Spread a thin layer of lemon curd over the raspberry jam and roll the cake up, cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight.

Dust the top with powdered sugar, and enjoy!

I think this cake actually tastes better than it looks...I would have preferred to roll it up along it's width instead of it's length and have a slightly thicker cake roll, but I can do that next time.

Happy Baking!

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