Zesty lemon sponge

Preheat oven to 180c and grease and line 3 x 7inch diameter cake tins.

Add butter and sugar to freestanding mixer (or whisk with a hand held) and cream until super pale (almost off white) and fluffy. 

Add half of the egg whites and cream again until the mixture thickens up again. Scrape the sides of bowl and add remaining egg whites and mix again until mixture comes together. Don't worry if it looks like it's split at this stage - just keep going.

Add all of the remaining ingredients and fold these through by hand with a spatula until the mixture is evenly distributed and you can't see any more pockets of flour. 

Divide evenly between your 3 tins and transfer to your preheated oven.

Bake for 25 minutes then test the middle of one of your cakes to see if a cocktail stick comes out clean. If not, transfer back to oven for another 5 minutes or until the stick comes out clean!

Elderflower Swiss Meringue Buttercream 

Add some boiling water to a saucepan, transfer to hob on a low heat (so that the water is slowly bubbling). On top place a glass bowl containing your egg white and sugar (make sure the glass bowl doesn't touch the boiling water). Keep stirring (and checking your spoon) until all the crystals of sugar have dissolved. This should take about 10 minutes. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, transfer CAREFULLY to your freestanding mixer (with the balloon whisk attachment) and whisk on top speed until the egg mixture resembles a beautiful white fluffy meringue. Whilst keeping the speed the same, add the cubes of butter one-by-one (this ensures the mixture stays a stiff peak consistency) until all mixed in and it looks a bit like whipped cream. At this point scrape down the sides, add a few drops of Elderflower Extract then mix for a few more seconds until evenly distributed. Transfer the buttercream to a disposable piping bag with a Wilton 1D nozzle. 

Raspberry Coulis

Transfer all the ingredients to a thick bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil whilst continuously stirring and squashing the raspberries with the back of a spoon. After the mixture starts boiling, keep stirring for another 5 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Pour into a sieve over a bowl and squash all the delicious coulis through (whilst removing all the pips!). Leave to cool.

Candied Lemon Zest 

Zest the lemons in long strips and add to a small saucepan of cold water. Bring to boil. Drain the lemon zest then add back to saucepan with 100ml cold water and the sugar. Bring to boil and let it simmer for about 10 minutes or until the zest goes translucent. Drain the lemon zest, add to a lined baking tray and transfer to an oven on a low heat (120c) for around 30 mins (or until the zest has dried out). Toss in a few more tablespoons of sugar. 

Raspberry Meringue Kisses

Preheat oven to 200c. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper. Add sugar to another baking tray lined with parchment and heat for 5 mins. Whilst sugar is heating, whisk egg whites to a stiff peak (Stop mixer once egg whites are stiff otherwise they can become overdone). Once sugar is heated through, remove from oven and start mixer again on a medium speed. 

Turn oven down to 100c and keep door open to let the hot air escape. Spoon sugar into egg whites a spoon at a time, then increase mixer to high speed until meringue is at stiff peak. Fold through some freeze dried raspberries at this point if you'd like to flavour the meringue.

Turn a large disposable piping bag inside out (over the top of a wine bottle) and paint on around 5 thick strips of pink colour from the top to halfway down the bag. Turn back the right way then carefully spoon in your meringue, then squeeze the meringue to the end of bag, popping any trapped air bubbles. Cut the end off bag (around the size of a 50p piece) and pipe your meringue kisses directly onto the tray you prepared earlier. Bake for around 30 minutes or until the largest meringue can be pulled off the tray with its base intact.

To assemble!

Now for the fun part!!

Take your 3 lemon sponges and start filling each one with rosettes of buttercream, splashes of coulis, sprinkles of candied lemon zest and whole raspberries around the edge. Add the final sponge and add all the above to the top of cake (as per the photo) as well as some meringue kisses, a pipette of coulis, some freeze dried raspberries and some fresh wild elderflower (if you can find any!).