Lemon Roll Cake with Lemon Curd Filling

While Easter may still be a few days away, it’s never too early to plan your Easter meal- especially the dessert! This year I have cooked up a show-stopping Easter dessert for you: a Lemon Roll Cake with Lemon Curd filling.

Lemon is a quintessential spring flavour. It’s light, tart and very refreshing, which is nice change after the rich and hearty meals (and desserts) that we have been eating since autumn began. I use all the components of the lemon in this recipe: the juice, the zest and even the oil found in the lemon rind. I don’t press the oil myself (that would be insane), I use a fabulous, convenient food-grade oil from my friend Liisa at DoTERRA Essential Oils. When we met at a networking event, Liisa was kind to give me a sample of the Lemon Essential Oil after hearing that I had a food blog. I had never cooked with essential oils before (since I couldn’t find any food-grade oils…only extracts) and she thought it would be a great addition to my recipes. While I have only tried this particular lemon oil in a few dessert recipes, I can imagine how great this would be in salad dressings, marinades or on fish!

I used this lemon oil exclusively in my Lemon Roll Cake. I refrained from adding any lemon oil to the Lemon Curd as the curd recipe uses one full cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice and two tablespoons of lemon zest. Clearly, it was very lemony on its own! While you may consider that making both a homemade roll cake and lemon curd is a bit daunting, especially around the holidays, I can honestly say that it is a lot easier than you may think! With just a little bit of effort, you can easily pull this beautiful and elegant dessert recipe off for your Easter dinner! Keep reading below for my top tips when making my Lemon Roll Cake and Lemon Curd below!

Lemon Roll Cake

• Use room temperature eggs to create a light and airy base for the cake. This will make the cake rise in the oven and stay airy once cooled.
• Roll the freshly baked cake up in a clean tea towel that has been lightly coated in confectioner’s sugar. Rolling the cake while it’s still hot allows it to keep its shape and the confectioner’s sugar prevents it from sticking to the tea towel. Once filled and rolled, brush any excess confectioner’s sugar off with a damp pastry brush.
• In the event of an overcooked, crumbly cake roll, use a touch of simple syrup (an equal mixture of sugar and water) to rehydrate the cake.
• You don’t just have to use lemon extract in here- go for a classic vanilla roll cake, an orange roll cake, and almond roll cake (yum!) whatever your heart desires!

Lemon Curd

• Combine the dry ingredients together first in a sauce pan (the sugar, salt, and cornstarch)- this allows the cornstarch to evenly distribute throughout the mixture so that you don’t end up with a lumpy curd.
• Whisk, whisk, and whisk some more! Once you’ve added the egg yolks and lemon juice, keep stirring so that you get a smooth and silky curd.
• Always strain the lemon curd. No matter how many times you have made lemon curd before, you may still get a few lumps in it. Strain the lemon curd to ensure that there are no lumps in your final dessert.
• Let the curd cool completely. You may think that the lemon curd is a bit runny once cooked, but let it set up in the fridge for 2-3 hours and it will thicken to the perfect consistency.

Let me know in the comments below if you will be trying this fabulous Lemon Roll Cake this spring and let me know what other spring-inspired desserts you like!

For the full recipe, click here!