The greenest flavours of spring belong to peas, and just because they’re a vegetable doesn’t mean they should be excluded from baking! Spring pea cake with lemony cream cheese icing and pea shoots is the most delicious way to celebrate the return of sunshine and flowers. Light, fluffy, and full of delicate flavours, it should definitely be enjoyed outside.
Spring pea cake with lemony cream cheese icing and pea shoots
Ingredients
Pea cake
- 280g frozen peas, defrosted and
- blanched, 2 minutes
- 200g butter, softened
- 150g castor sugar
- 3 eggs
- 15ml (1 tbsp) vanilla essence
- zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 250g cake flour
- 10ml (2 tsp) baking powder
- pinch salt
Icing
- 250g block cream cheese, softened
- 200g butter, softened
- zest of 1 lemon
- 500g icing sugar, sifted
- pea shoots, to garnish
Instructions
For the cake, preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line the base of 2 cake tins (23cm diameter). Add the peas to a blender and blitz to a smooth purée. Set aside until needed. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and castor sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs (one at a time), beating well after each addition, until well combined. Beat in the vanilla essence, lemon zest and juice, then stir through the pea purée to incorporate. Sieve the flour, baking powder and the salt into the wet ingredients. Gently fold in the dry ingredients, using a spatula. Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake tins and spread the tops to flatten. Bake, 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely on wire racks, about 1 hour, and remove from their tins.
While the cakes cool, make the icing by beating the cream cheese, butter and lemon zest together with an electric mixer, until well combined and fluffy. Add half of the sieved icing sugar and beat until incorporated, before adding the remaining icing sugar and beating the mixture again.
Sandwich the two cooled cakes together, using the icing, and ice the outside and top of the cake. Decorate the cake generously with fresh pea shoots.
