Lemon Cake Roll Recipe

This lemon cake roll recipe is filled with citrus flavors. Light and tangy, and is very nice served with orange sherbert.

Ingredients

Lemon Roll Cake
3 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons Lemon Juice (about 1 medium or 1/2 large)
Zest of one lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup all purpose flour
confectioners' sugar, for rolling

Filling
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
3 Tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup lemon curd (see recipe below)
confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Lemon Curd
1/8 cup fresh lemon zest (1 large lemon)
2 1/2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 egg yolks
3 Tablespoons butter, cut into pieces , at room temperature
(Makes about 3/4 cup)

Directions

If you are making your own curd, see the instructions at the bottom and make the curd ahead of time so that it has time to cool.

Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a jelly roll 10 x 15 inch pan with foil and grease with butter. Dust lightly with flour.

In a mixing bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer on high speed for 2 minutes, until frothy and dark yellow. Beat in sugar, lemon juice, and zest.

In another bowl, whisk together salt, baking powder, and flour. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients just until blended.

Spread in prepared pan. Batter will be in a very thin layer and you will need to use a wooden spoon or spatula to spread it to all the corners of the pan.

Bake for 9-10 minutes.

While the cake is baking, place a clean kitchen towel out on a large work surface.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup of confectioners' sugar onto the towel.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, turn it over on the kitchen towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Remove foil carefully.

Working at the short end, fold the edge of the towel over the cake. Roll tightly, rolling up the cake into the towel. Let cool completely while rolled, at least one hour.

Filling

While the cake is chilling, make the filling.

Beat the heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in the chilled lemon curd.

You can leave the lemon curd yellow or if you want to have it a contrasting orange color, put in a couple of drops of orange food coloring.

Chill until ready to use.

Assembly

When cake is cool, carefully unroll the towel.

Spread the lemon curd whipped cream over the cake.

Gently but tightly, re-roll the cake and wrap it in plastic wrap.

Chill until it firms up, a minimum of one hour or overnight.

Slice and serve.

Cake can be refrigerated up to 4 days.

Serve with orange sherbert.

Lemon Curd

Zest your lemons.

Squeeze the lemons.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. You only need the yolks for this recipe.

In a heat proof bowl, combine the lemon zest, juice, sugar and salt and stir together.

Select a pan to fit the heat proof bowl and put about two inches of water in it. Bring it to the boil, then turn it down to simmer.

Put the heat proof bowl with ingredients already in it into the pot with the heated water.

Whisk in the egg yolks.

Let this cook for about 7-10 minutes, whisking while it is cooking. Once the mixture thickens you can remove it from the hot water pot.

Whisk in the butter pieces, one at a time until all the butter is in the curd.

Put the curd through a strainer to remove the zested lemon pieces.

You can use the curd the color it is, or if you want it to be orange, you need to add a couple drops of orange food coloring.

Keep the lemon curd refrigerated. The curd is now ready for you to use with other recipes.