This weekend a close friend of mine celebrated her birthday and she adores lemon. More specifically, lemon curd. I admire her passion for luscious, buttery, tart lemon curd, which we could both quite easily eat by the spoonful until it made us sick. But no one wants that on their birthday, so rather than present her with jars of lemon curd, I made these Brown Butter Lemon & Raspberry Mini Cakes to showcase the real star of the show — the curd.
The cake base is naturally gluten free, made with almond meal and a small amount of polenta — just enough to give it a bit of texture without becoming an overly sweet cornbread. This particular friend is not a fan of corn, so using polenta was a little risky, but she was none the wiser.
I also didn’t want to make one large cake. I wanted something little and pretty that you could pop in your mouth, bursting with plenty of lemon flavour. Why have one cake when you can have several? Besides, I don’t know about you, but sometimes the pressure of producing a big, beautiful birthday cake requires more energy than I can fathom. This was one of those weekends.
She is also a big tea drinker and high tea is one of the many things we enjoy together, so these little cakes seemed much more fitting for her birthday. But you certainly don’t need a birthday, high tea or any other celebration to make them.
There’s minimal effort involved in making them look beautiful. A raspberry perched on top of the lemon curd does most of the decorating work for you. If you don’t have a piping bag — or simply can’t be bothered with that step either — use a dessert spoon and sprinkle the lot with a little icing sugar. It has a remarkable ability to hide many flaws.
And to top off the celebrations, I paired them with a Raspberry & Lemon Sour Mocktail.
Worth Making?
- Yes – the brown butter and almond make these much more interesting than a standard lemon cupcake, while the sharp lemon curd keeps the sweetness in check.
- Yes – they look special enough for a birthday or dessert table without needing a pile of buttercream or cream.
- Skip it – if you don’t have the patience to pipe lemon curd on each cake. The baking is straightforward; the individual assembly is the fiddly part.
- Skip it – if you’re looking for a light, fluffy little sponge. Almond meal and brown butter give these a moist, slightly dense crumb — deliberately so.
Brown Butter Lemon and Raspberry Mini Cakes
Ingredients
Brown butter almond cakes
- 170 grams unsalted butter
- 160 grams caster sugar
- 2 zest fresh lemons
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200 grams ground almonds
- 40 grams fine polenta
- 35 grams cornflour
- 1 1/2 tsps gluten free baking powder
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 60 ml milk
- 15 ml fresh lemon juice
- 150 grams fresh raspberries
Lemon Curd
- 2 large large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 130 grams caster sugar
- 2 zest lemon
- 120 ml fresh lemons juice
- 100 grams unsalted butter
- 1 pinch fine sea salt
Instructions
Brown butter almond cakes
- Brown the butter until deeply golden and nutty. Pour into a bowl and cool until barely warm.
- Rub the lemon zest into the caster sugar with your fingertips.
- Whisk the eggs and lemon sugar for 2–3 minutes until lighter and slightly aerated. Whisk in vanilla and gradually whisk in the brown butter.
- Combine almond meal, polenta, cornflour, baking powder and salt.
- Fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, alternating with the milk. Fold through the lemon juice last.
- Pour into a greased and lined 20cm springform or cake tin.
- Bake for 35–45 minutes, until golden and a skewer inserted into the cake itself comes out clean. Cool completely.
Lemon Curd
- Whisk eggs, yolks, sugar, zest and juice together in a saucepan.
- Cook gently over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until thick enough to heavily coat the back of a spoon, approximately 82–84°C if using a thermometer.
- Remove from heat and whisk in the butter a few cubes at a time. Add the salt.
- Strain, cover the surface directly and refrigerate until cold.
Assembly
- Using a piping bag with a round tip, or a spoon if you don’t have a piping bag, pipe a small dollop of lemon curd on each mini cake.
- Tope the curd with one fresh raspberry and finish with a fresh sprinkle of lemon zest over the top.
Make it your own way
- Push the lemon: Add the zest of a lemon to the card to make a more tart lemon curd and don’t hold back on the fresh zest over the finished cakes. The almond and brown butter can handle it.
- Change the fruit: Blackberry would be my first swap for raspberry; blueberry would make a softer, sweeter version. Strawberries would also work well.
- Add white chocolate: Drizzle a little over the finished cakes if you want something sweeter, but keep it restrained so it doesn’t drown out the lemon.
- Make them less fiddly: Skip piping the lemon curd and simply spoon onto the top before adding the raspberry. Messier to eat, considerably quicker to assemble.
- Go larger: Bake the batter as one almond cake and top with lemon curd and raspberries. Or bake into standard cupcakes. You lose the petit four style individual-cake appeal, but not the flavours.
