Lemon Berry Gateau
Summer has finally arrived, but if you think the warm temperatures aren't exactly suited for cream-heavy, rich desserts, you're wrong. Because even a creamy gateaux can be adjusted to be fresh and light for a summer day by substituting only a few ingredients.
Lemon Berry Gateau
For the sponge:
4 eggs
140g sugar
120g flour
1 tsp baking powder
For the filling:
750g quark
300ml whipping cream
5 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp lemon curd
7 heaped tbsp gelatin powder (dissolvable in COLD liquids)
300g mixed frozen berries
Sponge
1. Beat the eggs and the sugar until the mixture has tripled in volume.
2. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold slowly into the egg mixture.
3. Line two spring pans with baking paper and evenly divide the batter between the two pans.
4. Bake at 190°C for about 10 minutes or until golden brown on top. Let the cakes cool completely before filling them.
Filling
1. Unfreeze your frozen berries in a bowl at room temperature.
2. Put the berries into a pot and slowly warm them up. Stir frequently to make sure they don’t start sticking to the bottom of the pot. Let them simmer for a few minutes until they’re really soft and heated.
3. Puree the fruit and put it through a fine strainer. Put aside.
4. Put the quark in a bowl and add the vanilla essence, lemon juice and powdered sugar. Mix well.
5. Whip the whipping cream and fold into the quark mix.
6. Divide the quark mix in half. Mix the lemon curd into one half of the mix, then add about 3 heaped tablespoons of gelatin and mix well.
7. Fold the cooled berry puree into the other half of the quark. Add about 4 heaped tablespoons of gelatin and mix well.
Assembly
1. Fit one layer of the sponge into a cake ring. Pour the lemon quark on top and smooth out. Put the second layer of sponge cake on top and press down slightly until everything is nice and even. Pour the fruity quark on top and smooth out as well.
2. Put into the fridge for at least a couple of hours until everything has had a chance to set before you start decorating the outside.
3. Decorate the outside however you like. I used about 100ml of whipping cream and piped some two-tone flowers on top and then used to rest to lightly crumb-coat the sides so my white chocolate flakes would stick.
4. Put back into the fridge until you’re ready to eat!
If you want to find out how to substitute the quark, whipping cream and almost any other ingredient in this cake to make it more suitable to your taste, head over to my BLOG!