Lemon Curd Swirl Cake

I made this cake for a picnic I went on yesterday; it was easy to make and travelled fairly well too. I based it partly on a recipe from Weightwatchers magazine but doubled the quantity and used different frosting.

To serve 8-10, you need:

225g butter or reduced fat margarine

150g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g self-raising flour

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

150g cream cheese

3 tbsp lemon curd

Preheat oven to 175C fan. Grease a loaf tin with cake release - or two tins if you have them. (You can either make two cakes and sandwich them together, or one big cake and slice it in half).

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Add the eggs and beat, then fold in the flour and the lemon zest.

 Spoon half the mixture into a loaf tin and repeat, or if you prefer, put all the mixture into one tin.

I baked my cake for 25 minutes then did the same again with the other half of the cake mixture. If you are making one cake with the whole mixture it will take longer to cook.

The recipe I used instructed me to mix 150g of 0% Greek yogurt with 1 tsp icing sugar to make the filling. It may have been because I was using Tesco Light Greek Yogurt but my mixture was extremely thin and runny and I didn't think I would be able to use it to fill the cake. Instead I made some cream cheese frosting using Philadelphia and icing sugar with a few drops of lemon juice.

I levelled off the top of the cake as it had risen a little too much.

Spread the cream cheese frosting on one half of the cake. I then warmed a couple of tablespoons of lemon curd in the microwave until it was runny, and swirled it through the cream cheese.

I then sandwiched the cakes together and used some of the same frosting and lemon curd on top, though I spread it in quite a thin layer as I was going to wrap the whole cake in tin foil to take to the picnic - I had quite a long way to go by public transport and on foot and had a lot to carry, so I decided this was the easiest way to transport the cake!

I'm sending this to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel of DollyBakes and Laura of Laura Loves Cakes, as their theme this month is "pump up the jam" and they have asked for bakes using jam and curds. As I used lemon curd for the filling I am sending them this cake.