Rosemary lemon cake

Made in 10/2024 for the submission of my antibody-antigen paper.
As always with cakes: not sure this is the best cake recipe, but it’s good. The frosting is buttercream, but with the strong rosemary and burnt butter flavor, it works really well to bring out the herbaciousness. I didn’t have the lemon curd and it was still good. I modified to make only half the frosting, which was enough to do a naked cake.

Made again in 1/3 quantity, with a stabilized whipped cream where the cream had been infused with rosemary. I didn’t add sugar to the cream, it was missing, and the cakes don’t bake well in the metal circles. I wasn’t thrilled, the first try was better.

Ingredients

Cake

• 293 g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 170 g butter, softened
• 250 g sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 76 g sour cream
• ⅔ cup milk
• 5 tbsp lemon juice (approx. 2 lemons)
• 1 tbsp lemon zest (approx. 2 lemons)
• lemon curd

Frosting

• 113 g butter
• 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 185 g powdered sugar, sifted
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1.5 tsp heavy cream

Recipe

Cake

1. Oven: 180°C.
2. 6-inch cake round pan (a small one) lined with baking paper. 3 pans if you have, 1 pan used 3 times otherwise.
3. Separate bowl: whisky flour (293g), baking powder (1tsp), baking soda (1tsp), salt (1/2tsp).
4. Bowl of stand mixer, paddle: cream butter (170g) until white.
5. Add sugar (250g), whip until smooth.
6. Add 3 eggs, mix until incorporated.
7. Add sour cream (76g) and mix.
8. Add 1/3 of flour mixture, then 1/2 the milk (2/3 cup total), then 1/3 flour, then 1/2 the milk, then 1/3 flour mixture. Do not over mix.
9. Add lemon juice (5 tbsp) and lemon zest (1 tbsp), mix.
10. Divide batter into thirds in cake pans.
11. Bake for 35-40 min until toothpick comes out clean.
12. Cool for 5 min in pan. Unmold and cool on wire racks.

Frosting

1. Pot: add butter (113g) and rosemary (4 branches).
2. Melt then boil for 1 minute.
3. Let infuse and cool during 60-90 minutes.
4. Chill butter until solid (overnight) then bring back to room temp.
5. Stand mixer with paddle: cream butter until white. Add powdered sugar (185g), salt (1/4tsp) and heavy cream (1.5tsp). Mix until smooth.
6. If too liquid: more powdered sugar. If too solid: more cream.

Assembly

1. Piping bag with round tip: buttercream.
2. Level cake layers.
3. Make an edge of buttercream on 1st cake, put lemon curd in center.
4. Place second cake, make sure it’s centered. Repeat as for 1st cake.
5. Place third cake, center.
6. Do a crumb coat all around the cake and above. Refrigerate for 15 min.
7. Do more frosting if desired.
8. Refrigerate to solidify buttercream, but let come to room temp 15-30min before serving to have the cake soften.

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modified from thelittleepicurean