Lemon cakes with protein cream

Lemon cakes with protein cream are an easy dessert that was very popular during the Soviet era. That is why such cakes will not leave indifferent neither children nor adults. The main highlight of this dessert is the contrasting combination of sweet shortcrust pastry and slightly sour lemon cream.

Cooking time: 60 minutes.

Servings: 15.

Calories: 343.

Ingredients

For sand dough:

• flour - 290 g;
• egg yolks - 5 pcs;
• chilled butter - 200 g;
• baking powder for dough - 1.5 tsp;
• lemon zest - 1 tbsp;
• vanillin or vanilla extract - 0.5 tsp;
• powdered sugar - 75 g.

For lemon cream:

• egg whites - 5 pcs;
• sugar - 255 g;
• lemon juice - 3 tbsp;
• water 100 g.

Cooking

1. Scrape the zest from the lemon with a special knife or fine grater. Don't forget to wash the lemon first. Only the yellow part of the skin is suitable for zest, it is better not to touch the white part, otherwise the taste of the cake may become bitter.

2. Rub the cold butter on a coarse grater, gradually introducing flour into it so that the pieces of butter do not stick together. Grind butter and flour into crumbs. This butter crumb will become the basis of shortcrust pastry.

3. Add lemon zest, baking powder, raw egg yolks, powdered sugar and vanilla. We begin to knead the shortbread dough, knead better with your hands.

4. When the dough becomes homogeneous and elastic, it will need to be rolled into a ball and placed in the refrigerator for 20-25 minutes.

5. Roll out the cooled raw dough with a rolling pin on a silicone mat or parchment paper. To make the cakes neat and the same size, the dough sheet should be cut in the form of a rectangle with sides of 25 cm and 30 cm.

6. Cut the sheet of dough into 15 identical parts, spread on a baking sheet and send to the oven. Bake for 11 minutes at 200 degrees.

7. Pour water into a saucepan with a multi-layered bottom, pour sugar into it and put the mixture on a small fire for 8-9 minutes. You should get a thick and viscous sugar syrup. If you see that the syrup is close to caramelizing, you can take it off the heat a little earlier. The ideal syrup should not darken and harden too much. Pour 3 tablespoons of lemon juice into the finished syrup.

8. At this time, beat the whites in a kitchen machine until stable peaks. This should be done in a dry and clean container. For best results, the beater can also be degreased with lemon juice.

9. Introduce boiling sugar syrup in a thin stream into the proteins, without ceasing to whisk them vigorously. You need to beat for at least 12 minutes. During this time, the protein cream should become homogeneous, cool slightly and thicken. In the finished cream, you can add another teaspoon of lemon juice.

10. Remove the shortbread dough from the oven, trim the pieces with a knife. The excess crumb can then be used to sprinkle cakes.

11. When the cream has completely cooled down, grease the prepared pieces of dough with it. The layer of cream should be at least 4 cm high. The edges of the cream layer can be carefully trimmed with a silicone spatula or a large spoon. Sprinkle the top of the cakes with crumbs of dough. Put the finished lemon cakes in the refrigerator for several hours.

If you want to diversify the classic recipe for lemon cakes with protein cream a little, you can add a layer of lemon or any other jam between the cakes and cream. This delicious dessert based on shortcrust pastry and protein cream can be made not only with lemon, but also with tangerine, kiwi, pineapple or even grapefruit.