le quartre quarts

A classic, a perfect place to start blogging about cake and, my favourite of all cakes. Otherwise known as pound cake or a yellow butter cake, it is the base from which a lot of cakes are made. This cake uses these ingredients :

This method creams the butter into a smooth cream first to then set aside. Add the eggs and sugar with lemon rind and whip for a good 4-5 minutes. The sifted flour is mixed in briefly, and lastly the butter is incorporated into the egg mixture - again only briefly. The batter is poured into a 20cm cake tin, which has been lined with parchment paper, and then cooked for approximately 35 minutes.

For the cake today I made a creme au citron, or lemon cream. For this recipe I put icing sugar, lemon juice, lemon rind, hot water, 1 egg, a tablespoon of cornstarch into a saucepan and heated, whilst continually whisking. Off the heat, with further whisking the mixture thickens into a smooth translucent looking cream, with the addition of more butter.

After cooling the cake was cut in half, spread with lemon cream on the bottom layer and then sandwiched, topped off with a thin layer of lemon cream on the top.

As you can see, the middle sank slightly, which is a FAIL. Either the temperature was not hot enough or I took it out of the oven five minutes too early.
But from this cake, many take their heritage.

le quartre quarts
MAFC, Julia Child, Simone Beck
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child, Simone Beck, Alfred J. Knopf, NY