Coconut Lemon Meringue Cake

• Vegetarian

• Produce

  • 3 tbsp Lemon, zest

• Refrigerated

  • 4 Egg
  • 7 Egg white
  • 100 g Egg whites

• Condiments

  • 80 ml Lemon juice
  • 2 tsp Lemon juice, freeze dried powder

• Baking & Spices

  • 110 g Almond meal
  • 820 g Castor sugar
  • 2 Coloring, yellow
  • 200 g Icing sugar
  • 1 Pinch Salt
  • 230 g Self raising flour

• Nuts & Seeds

  • 50 g Coconut, dessicated
  • 2 tsp Coconut essence

• Dairy

  • 580 g Butter
  • 80 ml Buttermilk
  • 300 g Sour cream

Found on alittlecakespot.com

Description

Ingredients

• 130g butter at room temperature
• 1 tsp coconut essence
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 50g dessicated coconut
• 230g self-raising flour, sifted
• 300g sour cream
• 80ml buttermilk
• 2 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
• 150g caster sugar
• 80g chilled butter
• 80ml lemon juice
• 3 tbsp lemon zest
• 5 egg whites
• 300g caster sugar
• 370g butter, cubed and at room temperature
• 1 tsp coconut essence
• 2 tsp freeze dried lemon juice powder
• Yellow food colouring (I used Americolor gel food colouring in lemon yellow)
• 110g almond meal
• 200g icing sugar
• 100g egg whites
• 50g caster sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Yellow food colouring (I used Americolor gel food colouring in lemon yellow)
• 2 egg whites
• 120g caster sugar

Directions

• Preheat fan-forced oven to 160 degrees celsius. Grease two 6 inch cake tins and line with baking paper.
• Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add coconut essence and then add eggs one at a time.
• Combine coconut and sifted flour in a large bowl. Add all wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
• Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Cool completely in pan.
• Whisk eggs, yolks and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat until smooth.
• Add butter, juice and zest and continue whisking until thickened, approximated 10 minutes.
• Strain through a fine sieve and cool in the refrigerator.
• Heat egg whites and sugar in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water (make sure the water is not touching the bowl). While continuously whisking, use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature of the mixture. Heat the mixture to 60-70 degrees Celsius.
• Transfer the egg white mixture to the bowl of an electric stand mixer. You can do this with a hand mixer, but it does get rather messy. With the whisk attachment, beat the meringue at a high speed until it is thick and glossy and stiff peaks form.
• Switch over to the paddle attachment, and reduce mixer to a medium speed. Add butter one cube at a time, and mix until incorporated. The mixture may start to look curdled, but just keep mixing!
• Once you have a luscious smooth frosting, add the coconut essence, lemon juice powder and food colouring, turn the mixer to a low speed and continue beating for another 5 minutes.
• Preheat a fan forced oven to 125 degrees Celsius. Line 2-3 baking trays with baking paper. Trace 2-3cm circles onto the baking paper with a pencil or sharpie, spacing them approximately 1.5cm apart (I used the lid of a herb jar for this – you can really use anything circular). Flip the baking paper over so that you are piping your macaron batter onto the side without the pencil/pen.
• Sift icing sugar and almond meal through a fine sieve into a large mixing bowl and set aside. I like to put my almond meal and icing sugar into the food processor first, but this is optional if you don’t have a food processor. If you do, I highly recommend this step as it helps with achieving a nice smooth surface on the macaron.
• In a stand mixer, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until it reaches soft peaks. While mixing at a medium-high speed, add the caster sugar one spoon at a time and continue to beat until it reaches stiff peaks. Add food colour at this point.
• Add meringue to your dry mixture and fold together with a spatula. This is where it gets a bit tricky. With each fold you need to smear the batter on the side of the bowl to get the large air bubbles out. You need to fold for about 35-40 strokes until your batter reaches ribbon stage (this means that a ribbon of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture disappears in about 30 seconds) or about the consistency of lava.
• Place the mixture into a piping bag with a 1cm round piping tip. Pipe circles onto your prepared trays. Tap baking trays carefully onto the bench top or working surface about 4 times to remove any large bubbles. Then use a toothpick to get rid of any of the smaller bubbles on the surface of the macarons, in order to achieve a nice smooth surface.
• Leave to dry for about 45-60 minutes. This helps achieve the ‘feet’ of your macarons.
• Bake macarons for 17-19 minutes. Carefully test if the base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it’s still soft and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few minutes longer.
• Allow macarons to cool completely on the tray and then gently remove from the tray and place on a wire rack to cool.
• Heat egg whites and sugar in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water (make sure the water is not touching the bowl). While continuously whisking, use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature of the mixture. Heat the mixture to 60-70 degrees Celsius.
• Transfer the egg white mixture to the bowl of an electric stand mixer. You can do this with a hand mixer, but it does get rather messy. With the whisk attachment, beat the meringue at a high speed until it is thick and glossy and stiff peaks form.
• Cut each cake in half so that you have 4 layers. Place the first layer on a serving dish or cake board.
• With a 1.5cm round piping tip, pipe a dam around the edge of the cake.
• Fill half way up the dam with a layer of buttercream and then top with a layer of lemon curd. Repeat for all layers.
• Cover the cake with coconut lemon buttercream and smooth the sides and top with a cake scraper.
• Using a spoon or spatula, create a cascade of meringue down the side of the cake (you could also just place the meringue on top of the cake). Using a flicking motion, create an uneven surface on the meringue.
• Using a blow torch, lightly toast the meringue, being careful not to melt the buttercream.
• Finish off with macarons and fresh lemon slices.
• To assemble the macaron - with a small circle piping tip, pip a ring of buttercream on one macaron shell and then fill with lemon curd. Sandwich with a second macaron shell.