Lemon Blueberry Layer Cake with Apricot Custard

The title kind of says it all, so we’ll just offer a suggestion: Leave room for dessert.

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 3/4 cup white sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup lemon yogourt
• Zest and juice of 3 lemons
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries tossed with 1 tbsp of flour
• 2 cups lemon-apricot custard (see -Lemon-Apricot Custard recipe)
• 1 tube of vanilla icing (see Assembling the Cake)
• 7-minute frosting (to decorate)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 350˚F, and grease and flour three 9-by-2-inch, round cake pans.
2. Place the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl, and mix with an electric mixer for 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until well combined.
3. In a second bowl, combine the buttermilk, yogourt, lemon zest and juice, vanilla extract and lemon extract. Mix well.
4. In a third bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
5. To the beaten sugar, mix in the flour mixture alternating with the milk mixture until just combined.
6. Gently fold in the blueberries, and divide the batter evenly among the 3 prepared baking pans.
7. Place in the preheated oven, and bake for 25 minutes.
8. When baked, remove the cakes to a rack to cool, and tip them out of their pans after 5 minutes. Let cool completely.

ASSEMBLING THE CAKE

1. Centre one of the cakes flat-side down on a dish or pedestal.
2. Open the tube of vanilla frosting, and pipe a dam of icing around the perimeter of the layer (this will keep the lemon custard from flooding over the edges).
3. Next, fill the dam with half the lemon custard.
4. Top with the next layer, create another dam of icing filled with custard and top with the final cake layer.
5. Lastly, cover the cake with swirls of 7-minute frosting (see recipe for 7-Minute Frosting).