Raspberry-Lemon Biskuit Cake

I made this cake for my grandmas birthday. I had this idea about combining lemon and raspberry in a cake. If you look at most of my cakes I think it becomes obvious that I absolutely love my aunt's biscuit. So I used it as the base. And for the raspberry part I chose the raspberry dough from this recipe. And to round it out I would make a lemon frosting.
It didn't work out as I planed. I hate buttercream frosting, so I chose a cream cheese frosting. It was the first time I made that recipe. It was horrible. For one it was too sweet, but I could have lived with that. But the real problem was that it was too runny and it didn't get better when I put it in the fridge for some time. It just run down the cake. I would have made some other cream, but there was no cream cheese leftover. And it was already too late to go and by more. I was really pissed.
So I think it's no surprise that I'm replacing the frosting with one I made before and that actually worked and tasted good.

But it was not all bad. This is the first time that the fondant I made worked out perfectly.
I stumbled over this blog. There I found not only a recipe for fondant that uses only german ingredients. But also one for gum paste. I actually had to make a half an hour long bus trip to a bigger grocery store to get some of the ingredients. But it was worth it, 'couse it was still cheaper than to buy it online.
And like I said the fondant was great, just the right texture. The cake would have been beautiful. Smooth and even. The cream totally ruind it. I was kinda sad.

There are a few drawbacks to this recipe.
For one the syrup used for it is too dark. It results in an off-white fondant. For another it's a little too soft. So I don't think it's suitable for shaping.
If you make the gum paste, the problem with the shaping disappears. But if you don't plan to color it you get another problem. Because the gum paste is a pure white. The differene between the fondant and the gum paste will be obvious. 

It was the first time I worked with gum paste. I'm pretty happy with the result.
The flowers look really beautiful. They weren't perfect but for a first try still pretty good. But the work is rather elaborate. The gum paste dries fast. So I could only work on one or two petals at a time. And everytime you have to take the gum paste out of the plastic wrap, cut of a piece, put the rest back, roll out the cut of piece, stamp out the petals, put the spare gum paste back, work on the pestals and then do it all over again. I think I worked over one hour on the rose alone.
But the result was worth it.

Usually I don't put up so many picutres. But well I am rather proud of my accomplishment and wanted to show it from all sides. It would have been too hard to chose only two or even three pictures.

_____________________________________________________

Raspberry-Lemon Biskuit Cake

Biskuit

150 g flour
38 g cornstarch
188 g sugar
315 g eggs (with shell)
1 pinch citric acid powder

1. Weigh the eggs with the shell. Try to come as close to the intended weight as you can. That works best with a mix of medium and large sized eggs.
2. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.
3. Put the egg whites in a tupperware container, close it. Put the container in the freezer. Leave it there until the egg whites are a little bit frozen on the edges. This can take from 15-50 minutes. You should check every 5-10 minutes.
4. Beat the egg yolks with a hand mixer until they turn pale. Put a piece of saran wrap directly on the beaten yolk. Put the bowl in the fridge for later.
5. Mix the flour with the cornstarch. Sieve the mixture at least twice. Leave the flour in the sieve for later.
6. Put the sugar into a small bowl and leave it for later.
7. Take a baking pan but leave out the bottom. Put a cake-strip around the pan.
8. Put baking parchment on a baking sheet. Place the ring of the baking pan on top. Crush the edges of the parchment around the ring.
9. Pre-heat the oven to 155°C/310°F.
10. Prepare the flour, the sugar, the yolk and a timer for easy access.
11. Put the citric acid powder in a big bowl.
12. Add the egg whites.
13. Whip the egg whites manually. Preferably use a spiral whisk or a normal whisk, if you don't have one. It's important that you don't turn the bowl while you whip the eggs and you always have to beat in the same direction. Basically you have to repeat one hand movement the whole time.
14. After 10 minutes start gradually adding the sugar. Overall the egg whites should be whipped for 25 minutes.

15. Afterwards add the egg yolk.

16. Sieve half of the flour to the whipped egg whites. Fold them in carefully but quickly. Sieve in the remaining flour and fold it in too. Like with the egg whites you should not turn the bowl and fold in the same direction. Try to work quickly but always be careful.

17. Put the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth out the top as good as you can.

18. Bake for 50-60 minutes. When you press the top carefully with a finger and it jumps back, the biscuit is finished.

19. Put the baking pan on a cooling rack and leave it to cool down completely.

20. Remove the parchment. Afterwards use a thin knife to carefully cut the biscuit out of the pan.

 

Raspberry Batter

1 2/3 cups raspberrys, frozen
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
2 tbsp lemon zest
2 egg whites
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt

1. Let the raspberrys thaw.
2. Press them through a sieve.
3. Grate the zest of the lemon.
4. Squeeze out the juice.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/360°F.
6. Place baking parchement into the cake pan. Press it firmly to the edges. Try to make it as smooth as possible.
7. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together.
8. Pour the batter into the cake pan.
9. Bake it for 30-35 minutes.
10. Take the pan out of the oven and let it cool down on a cooling rack.
11. When the dough is completely cold, take it out of the pan. Don't yet detach the parchment.
12. Place it in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours.

Lemon Sauce

1/2 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1/4 tsp lemon zest
1 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
3 eggs
1 pinch salt

1. Grate the zest of the lemon.
2. Squeeze out the juice.
3. In a sauce pan combine the juice, the sugar, the egg yolk, the eggs and the salt.
4. On a waterbath bring the mixture to a boil. Stir constantly with a whisk. Cook it for 12-14 minutes.
5. Press the mixture through a fine sieve.
6. Add the lemon zest and mix it in.

Frosting 

250 g cream cheese
60 g butter, soft
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp lemon extract

1. Whip the butter with a hand mixer until it's smooth.
2. Add the cream cheese and 1/4 of the icing sugar to the butter. Blend everything together with the hand mixer on medium speed.
3. While the hand mixer is still running add the remaining sugar and the extract.
4. Blend the frosting for another 4 minutes.

To Assemble

1. Cut the biscuit in half. Put the top half to the side for later.
2. Spread a little more than half of the lemon sauce on the biscuit.
3. Take the raspberry batter out of the fridge. Carefully detach the baking parchment from it.
4. Place it on the biscuit.
5. Spread about half of the remaining lemon sauce on it.
6. Place the cut of biscuit on top.
7. Spread the remainig lemon sauce on top.
8. Cover the whole cake with the frosting.
9. Decorating the cake with fondant is optional.

Bon appétit!!