LEMON SPONGE (TROLL FEAST CAKE)

The very talented playwright extraordinaire, Van Badham, put a challenge out on the net. On June 10, make a troll themed cake for #trollfeast, a day dedicated to fighting internet trolls. Trolls are those nameless people who like to just write rude things at people, usually with unintelligent rants and name calling. The thing I always find interesting is that they never have their real name or photo on their profiles, so they feel like they can say anything they like. And boy do they!

The challenge was made and I gladly accepted, making this hate cake with love. I made a lemon sponge with lemon buttercream icing. I coloured it blue, the colour of twitter, and also so you could see my black and white icing pens. It was fun writing all the words that I, or people I know, have been called. I am directing a play for my teen drama class about bullying called, "The Words of Others", so this seemed fitting.

I put it on line, Van retweeted it and then suddenly there was an audience, and naturally trolls. I put up a cake to fight the name calling and got called names myself. There was one rant I didn't quite get, maybe I was too dumb, maybe he was insane. But there was another one. I have posted what she said below:

This woman would put a dog down? In Van Badham style, I had to answer back. I don't get why people need to send anonymous people vile messages? Maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit. Anyway, the cake was super tasty and the lemon really lifted the taste of the cake and the icing. Feel free to make a normal version without the vitriol and hopefully without the hate that follows. Keep baking my friends.

LEMON SPONGE CAKE RECIPE:

Ingredients:
250 grams of unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups of caster sugar
4 eggs
2 1/4 cups of self raising flour
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
3 tbsp milk
Squirt of lemon juice

Directions:
1 - Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line 2 round cake tins, or if like me, 1, and then use it again after you make the first one.
2 -  Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.
3 - Add the eggs individually, beating well after each addition.
4 - Sift through the flour and fold in completely with a metal spoon.
5 - Fold in the lemon rind, juice and milk gently and evenly.
6 - Spoon half the mixture into the prepared pans (mixture will be quite thick), and evenly spread across the bottom of the pan.
7 - Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and springy to touch.
8 - Cool completely on wire racks before icing.

LEMON BUTTERCREAM ICING

Ingredients:
500 grams of unsalted butter, softened
150 - 200 grams of icing sugar (rough estimate, keep putting in until it reaches a thicker consistency)
Juice of 1 lemon
Food Colouring (I used blue, you can use yellow)
Writing icing pen

Directions:
1 - Cream together butter until pale and creamy
2 - Add icing sugar gradually until you are happy with the thickness, shouldn't be too runny and will be easy to spread.
3 - Add juice gradually. 1 whole lemon juiced makes it quite tart, so keep tasting flavour to see how tart you want it.
4 - Finally add colour and beat until through completely.
5 - Place icing all over top of 1 sponge and then sandwich second on top. Ice whole cake and place in fridge for 15 minutes to make sure icing firms up.
6 - Grab your icing pen and have fun writing whatever you like.
7 - Share with friends and enjoy

So here was my #trollfeast cake, time for you to make one.