Lemon Chiffon Cake

This recipe is my take on a delicious creation from Konditor & Cook.  Having languished for so long in the wilderness of the ready-made box-wrapped "stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap" 'celebration cake' peddled by supermarkets up and down the country, London's denizens now rejoice in the renaissance of quality artisan delicacies.  A renaissance in which K&C is playing its part by returning to cosmopolitan glory that which was previously seen as the preserve of grandmas and people who had settled for a life in the slow-lane: iced cakes.

Chiffon cakes apparently contain oil instead of butter and derive their light texture from beating the egg whites until soft peak stage before adding the other ingredients... so why this cake, which contains neither oil nor beaten egg whites, is called a chiffon cake is something of a mystery.  The cake does use the creaming method, as opposed to an all-in-one sponge mixture, which does give it a very light texture.

And a note about the icing: refrigerating it is for the purposes of setting and ease of serving, it is not to stop the frosting 'going off'.  It may use cream cheese, but once something is combined with that much sugar, the sugar acts as a stabiliser and a preservative (hence, for example, why jams are also known as preserves or conserves - leftover fruits were put to use instead of being left to rot by preserving them in sugar).  These cakes were designed to be kept in a pantry i.e. somewhere cool, maybe between 10-15C, not the distinctly chillier 5C of the average domestic fridge.  Cakes actually go stale faster at that temperature, even when sealed by the icing to stop them drying out.  And, just like a good red, they're at their most flavoursome at room temperature.  So unless the weather (or your kitchen) is really hot, don't feel obliged to keep it in the fridge the whole time; just keep it in an air-tight box, preferably somewhere cool and out of direct sun-light.

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter (room temperature)

225g caster sugar

4 large eggs

225g self-raising flour

Zest of half a lemon

For the icing:

650g icing sugar

325g good-quality cream cheese

Zest of one lemon

85g unsalted butter

Two 20cm (8 inch) cake tins, greased and lined.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4.  Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer until white and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, followed by a quarter of the flour; repeat till all are combined. Then add the zest and mix thoroughly.

Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Turn the sponges out and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, prepare the frosting. Combine the icing sugar, cream cheese and lemon zest until smooth in a mixer.  Melt the butter and our the butter slowly into the frosting while mixing.  Refrigerate until cool (at least an hour).

Cut the sponges in the middle to make 2 discs each. Start with one layer of sponge on a cake board; spread frosting on top, then put a layer of sponge on top of the frosting and repeat until you have layered all four discs. Cover the outside of the cake with the remaining frosting and put in the fridge to set.