Sweet Pea Cake with Lemon Buttercream + a Spring Lunch

As I've mentioned before, Rose's Luxury, with their Eggplant Tarte Tatin, Smoked Celery Mascarpone, and my favorite-- an English Pea Cake, has really opened my eyes into the exciting possibilities of vegetable-based desserts. While Aaron Silverman and crew certainly give these treats their own creative spin, these are not without their roots in traditional American and British baking. Of course, there's carrot cake and pumpkin pie, but I've also seen less common selections in old cookbooks-- Tomato Soup Cakes, Carrot Pie, Fannie Farmer's Caramel Potato Cake, and this Pretty Black Eyed Pea Cake-- a spice cake variety that's distinctly southern. There isn't much information about the cultural history of such desserts readily available, but it's a genre I'm planning to explore more.




This Sweet Pea Cake with Lemon Buttercream is British in tone (and not just because it's adapted from the UK blog Veggie Desserts)-- I imagine it as a perfect al fresco tea time accompaniment. It's a little more classic and oriented for the home baker than Rose's Luxury's pudding-like variety with mint curd and buttermilk cream. But in both, the pea purée makes the cake dreamily moist with a shocking green hue, while the pea shoots and other fresh greens position it squarely in the season of SPRING, no matter when you're actually eating it.




I baked this for a little luncheon with Morgan (of Panda Head Blog) and illustrator Elizabeth Graeber. Elizabeth and I both have birthdays in April, so we were doing double duty--picking up our collaboration series again as well as celebrating with a colorful spring meal.

Morgan made the zingiest Salmon with Lemon over Greens for our main course, and fresh radishes with butter and salt held us over while we snapped the obligatory photos and iced the cake. Big thanks to the P St. Whole Foods for offering up most of these ingredients.

Sweet Pea Cake with Lemon Buttercream

Adapted from Veggie Desserts

Makes a 9'' 2-layer cake

Ingredients
For the pea cake:
3 cups fresh or frozen peas
18 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt

For the lemon buttercream:
2/3 cup (11 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon

To finish:
pea shoots and/or microgreens
edible flowers

Directions
For the cake:
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and line two 9” cake pans (or three 6” pans) with parchment paper. In a medium saucepan with just enough water to cover the peas, bring peas to a boil for 3 minutes, then drain and refresh under cold water. Place peas in the bowl of a food processor and puree until completely smooth. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt, whisking gently to combine. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then beat in the cooled pea puree, vanilla, and lemon zest and juice. On low-medium speed, add the flour mixture just until incorporated.

4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake pans, spreading batter evenly and leveling. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

For the lemon buttercream:
1. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, cream the butter until fluffy. Add in the confectioner's sugar and beat at least 3 minutes. Beat in the zest and a little of the lemon juice. Add more lemon juice as needed to make it a spreadable frosting consistency and beat to combine. Store in the fridge until ready to use.

To assemble:
1. Spread the buttercream between the layers of the completely cooled cakes and sandwich together. Cover the cake in the remaining buttercream and decorate with pea shoots, microgreens and edible flowers.

Find Elizabeth's brilliant related illustrations (including the menu) at Food on Paper and visit Panda Head Blog for more of Morgan's photos and the recipe for Salmon with Lemon over Swiss Chard.

Related recipes:

Pea & Corn Cookies

Pecan Layer Cake with Salted Caramel Filling and Vanilla Buttercream

Lemon Lavender Meringue Pie Cookies

Lemon Meringue Pie Cake

Photos by Morgan Hungerford West (except for 1 & 8-- I took those!)

Illustrations by Elizabeth Graeber

Sally's Lemon Meringue Pie Cake

This post comes from my dear friend Sally Anne Morgan of Asheville, NC (you may remember her from her previous guest post). Sally is an old-time fiddler-- with The Black Twig Pickers and otherwise, guitar player, and singer, as well as a talented artist (as evidenced by the above "multimedia" visual). She also runs the letterpress company Ratbee Press and Design, and bakes a fine pie, cake, and as it turns out, also pie cake! She made this lemon confection for our third annual women's old-time musician's retreat last month. More from Sally....

Last week, I packed up my fiddle, guitar, bottle of Elijah Craig, selection of vinyl records, and KitchenAid mixer to head to Wingina, Virginia for our third annual Women’s Weekend. In Wingina. Yes. As always, it was a time of celebration, empowerment, music and merry making, and lots and lots of talking and eating.

One of my contributions to the culinary spread was a layer cake. I must admit I messed up the steps in mixing the cake batter, which resulted in a slightly denser cake than I was aiming for. I’ll blame my mistakes on the fact that I was trying to sing harmony with the lovely Lorie while reading the recipe off my I-phone and operating the stand mixer, all at once. But the fluffiness of the meringue topping and delightful tartness of the lemon curd filling made up for it. 

Originally I wanted to make a pink strawberry cake with whipped cream because, Wingina. But I ended up cobbling this recipe together as several of us have dairy allergies or sensitivities. It uses butter, which was okay with everyone, and lots and lots of eggs, but no cream or milk. Plus, lemons seemed more seasonally appropriate, and I have always loved Lemon Meringue Pie (this is essentially the cake version). And I love that my mouth puckers even when thinking of lemons.



Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Curd and Meringue Icing

Lemon Curd
Adapted from Fine Cooking

Make this the day before you plan to bake the cake, or the morning of.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Directions
1. The trick to this recipe is to use the electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar for about 2 minutes, then slowly add the eggs and yolks. Beat for about a minute. Mix in the lemon juice. It will look curdled but should smooth out as it cooks. (Some recipes don’t call for beating it all together beforehand, which results in uneven cooking of the eggs, and then you need to strain it all)

2. For the next step, you need to stir constantly. In a medium sized saucepan, cook over low heat until it looks smooth as the butter melts. Increase to medium heat, keep stirring. It takes about 15 minutes until it is thick and reaches about 170 degrees. Don’t let it boil.

3. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon zest. Pour into a mason jar and chill in the refrigerator. It will thicken more as it cools.

Lemon Chiffon Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 teaspoons lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 large egg yolks at room temperature
8 large egg whites at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two 9 inch cake pans with parchment paper or newspaper.

2. Sift the flour, 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking powder and salt together twice into a large bowl.

3. Using your mixer, beat the yolks, water, oil, zest and vanilla on high speed until smooth. Stir into the flour mixture until smooth. In another large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks are formed. Add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and beat on high speed until the peaks are stiff but not dry.

4. Use a rubber spatula to fold one-quarter of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture, then fold in the remaining whites. Do so gently, only until the egg whites are no longer visible. Overdoing it will deflate the egg whites, and yield a denser, shorter cake.

5. Pour the batter into the cake pans and spread evenly. Bake them until the top springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes. Check every five minutes after the first thirty minutes.

6. Let cakes cool for at least an hour. When completely cool, run a knife around the sides to release, then flip out onto a plate. If the cake rises too much in the oven, after it is cooled, using a very sharp knife or a good serrated knife, cut off the domed top to make a flat surface. I secretly like doing this because I can taste the cake before everyone else.

Meringue Icing & Cake Assembly

I looked up several recipes for a topping for the cake before deciding the one from this recipe. I was a little nervous about how it would turn out, but it got amazingly fluffy, light,  and voluminous, and was really really easy! The egg whites as basically raw, so be sure to use non-factory farm eggs.

I was unsure of how well this topping would hold up over time, as I assembled the cake a couple hours before it was served. It held up just fine for probably 4-5 hours. By the next morning when some of us wanted cake for breakfast, it looked slightly worse for wear-- not too bad, but a tiny bit deflated. Just keep this in mind – you can’t assemble this cake a whole day in advance.

Ingredients
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/4 cup water
Dash of salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
3 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1. Combine 2/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water, and dash of salt in a small saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to a boil, stirring just until sugar dissolves. Cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer registers 240° (about 4 minutes).

 2. Combine cream of tartar and 3 egg whites in large bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until foamy. Gradually add the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, beating at high speed until medium peaks form (this took several minutes)

3. Gradually pour the hot sugar syrup into the egg white mixture, beating first at medium speed and then at high speed until stiff peaks form. Beat in ½ teaspoon vanilla extract.

4. Assembling the cake:  With the cake fully cooled, and topping and filling both ready, place one of your two layers on a plate or cake stand, and cut strips of parchment paper to put around it (this will make cleaning up topping that drips much easier).

5. Fold about ½ a cup of the meringue into 1 cup of the lemon curd, and slather on the bottom cake layer using a spatula. Gently place the second cake layer on top, and cover with meringue. You can load the topping on pretty thick at the top if you want, I think mine was about 1 1/2 inches high at the center. Smooth with a spatula.

Note: If you're the kind of person who has a pocket blow-torch, you can use it to brown the edges of the cake. Alas, I am sans blow torch. I wouldn't try putting it in the broiler-- that seems too risky for a cake (not to mention if it's on a cake stand!), but it's fine fresh. I added thinly sliced a lemon to the top of the cake, which looked nice. You could sprinkle some lemon zest around if you prefer, or leave it bare. Enjoy!

Related recipes:
Lemon Chess Pie
Lemon Meringue Pie
Lime and Raspberry Italian Meringue Pie
Pecan Layer Cake with Salted Caramel Filling and Vanilla Buttercream

Birthday Cake on A Pie Blog (for Panda Head)

I've been delaying writing about this because I've been conflicted. And for a few reasons. There was  the political roller coaster of the past few days along with the tug of some potential exciting opportunities versus the pull of reality... But the one that's the most relevant to this space (and perhaps the most trivial, though this is for fun, ya?) has been in regards to the age-old pie vs. cake debate. Specifcally, is it okay to write about cake, the purported natural born enemy of pie, on a pie blog??

Personally I don't see the two in opposition...they're both delicious and relevant in different situations. There's been many times when folks have suggested or given me pie for my birthday, and it's not that I wasn't appreciative or didn't enjoy it--I wholeheartedly did and always will! But for me, birthdays call for cake and nothing but, and though I like many different varieties (carrot, red velvet, pistachio, to name a few), and am normally not one for overly-sweet, nothing says "birthday" to me like white buttercream-on-white cake, with overloaded decorative frosting.

So with that justification, along with an additional "exception to the rule" logic, I'm going to do it. Post about cake.

Last month Tarts by Tarts was contacted by Morgan of Panda Head -- the DC lifestyle blog of all-things-fun-and-rad. Morgan said that she'd always considered May a birthday month, and asked if Kari and I might contribute birthday cake photos and a recipe for her up-coming May newsletter. Kari and I, with birthdays in mid-May and end-of-April, respectively (TAURUS LOVE!) were totally down, and we added in a springy gin cocktail, the Mayday, to sweeten the deal.

 
When I turned six, we celebrated my birthday on a friends' communal farm where I spent a lot of time as a child. My mom and her friend hid my birthday party in the woods--teddy bears' picnic style--and we had to go find it. Perhaps it is an undiscovered instinct in children to be able to sniff out a birthday party, but for some reason we hiked almost directly to it. When we finally tracked it down, there we found balloons and tables and chairs made of logs, covered with presents, party favors, and of course, a white-on-white cake.

Ever since then, I seem to hold all birthday parties to that standard, so when Morgan said "outdoor birthday" I immediately thought of a hidden cake in Rock Creek Park. That presented a few too many logistical challenges, though, so we decided on the next best thing--a backyard birthday party.

With our "style vibe" nailed down, then we had to decide on the cake--first thing's first, ya know. Kari is also of the white buttercream birthday cake school of thought, but we wanted something a little more innovative. I was quite struck by the scraps I got to try of this pistachio layer cake Kari made for her friends' wedding. But we wanted a recipe that would be somewhat new for both of us, AND something that would go with salted caramel, which we've both been pretty into lately (Who hasn't? But seriously--bourbon caramel glazed doughnuts, anyone?). We've also been in utter awe of Apt. 2 B's beautiful beautiful ombre frosting technique. So we put all these equations in our recipe hat, mixed it up a bit, and drew out a pecan layer cake with salted caramel layers and vanilla buttercream in a yellow ombre. BAM.

So on one fine spring Sunday, Morgan and her photographer pal Michelle Rigg bicycled up to our house, and we spent a few hours in our kitchen and backyard frosting and mixing and chatting and styling and snapping pics (and okay, drinking and eating). It was almost as fun as a real birthday party and it was so great to have a creative collaboration with these three rad ladies.

Enough with the faux-birthday party though, here's how to make that cake for your REAL May Day...







You can click on the recipe cards to make them bigger, if needed. And feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.

Now you want a little sipper to add to all that sweet? Here's the recipe for our Mayday cocktail. I should note that we highly recommend using the Greenbrier gin from Smooth Ambler, a small batch distillery outside of Lewisburg, West Virginia, which we visited in the fall. Their gin is great for this drink because it has a smoooth citrus flavor without a lot of the dominant juniper taste of other dry British gins (which certainly have their place). The Mayday also works well as a punch--I made a huge batch of the stuff for my own birthday party, and with its bright purple hue, it looked so festive in the bowl. It's also strong and easy to drink a lot of. Mayday, mayday, going down...

Is it any wonder that our frosting looks like butter? For more pictures and great commentary, don't forget to check out the original post in the Panda Head May newsletter here, Kari's post on Tanglewood, and this little shout-out we got from Refinery29! Special thanks to Kari and Michelle for their beautiful pictures and sorry I got longwinded with this post--I don't get to talk about cake very much. Happy backyard birthday!