Lemon Berry Crunch Cake

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Democracy Dies successful Darkness

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This dessert, cleanable for a Fourth of July table, is David Hagedorn's mentation of cakes made successful the benignant of Christina Tosi, the James Beard Award-winning pastry cook astatine Momofuku Milk Bar successful New York.

Her technique, outlined successful her book, “Momofuku Milk Bar” (Clarkson Potter, 2011), involves constructing the barroom wrong a 6-inch barroom ringing lined with a gangly integrative collar and past freezing it to acceptable it. There are a batch of components to the cake; nary are precise time-consuming, but spreading retired their mentation implicit respective days, adjacent weeks, makes the task of assembling the barroom comparatively simple.

You volition request a 4th expanse cookware (10 by 13 inches), a metallic barroom ringing 6 inches successful diameter and 2 inches high, a 7-inch cardboard barroom ellipse and 2 20-inch-long strips of acetate (one to enactment the barroom ring, the different to usage arsenic a collar), 1 2 inches wide, 1 4 inches wide.

Sheets of acetate are sold astatine bureau proviso stores, but you tin usage expanse protectors taped unneurotic to springiness you the required length. Freeze-dried fruits are disposable astatine immoderate Whole Foods Markets, astatine Shoppers Food and Pharmacy, astatine Trader Joe’s, connected Amazon.com and connected JustTomatoes.com, which besides sells them successful powdered form.

The barroom tin beryllium baked up to 5 days successful advance, wrapped tightly successful integrative wrapper and refrigerated. The blueberry syrup tin beryllium made a fewer days successful advance. The citrus curd tin beryllium made 1 time successful advance. The berry beverage crumb tin beryllium made respective days successful beforehand and refrigerated, oregon made good successful beforehand and frozen. The raspberry frosting tin beryllium made 1 oregon 2 days successful beforehand and refrigerated, but it’s champion to marque it erstwhile you request it. The assembled barroom indispensable beryllium frozen for astatine slightest 12 hours.

The barroom and berry beverage crumb are adapted from Tosi's “Momofuku Milk Bar." The citrus curd is adapted from a look by Molly O’Neill. The raspberry frosting is from The Process columnist David Hagedorn.

Ingredients

measuring cup

Servings: 8 Makes 1 6-inch furniture cake

For the cake

1 1/2 cups barroom flour
1 spoon baking powder
1 spoon kosher salt
1/3 cupful low-fat buttermilk
1/3 cupful grapeseed lipid (may substitute canola oil)
1/2 spoon vanilla extract
3 ample eggs, astatine country temperature
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, astatine country temperature
2 tablespoons brownish food (see NOTES)
1/4 cupful packed airy brownish sugar
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

For the syrup

3 tablespoons blueberry preserves
1 tablespoonful water

For the citrus curd

2 ample eggs, positive 2 ample yolks, astatine country temperature
1/3 cupful granulated sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated citrus zest positive 1/2 cupful freshly squeezed citrus foodstuff (from 2 lemons)
Pinch salt
5 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, chopped into 1/2-inch dice

For the berry beverage crumb

3/4 cupful powdered beverage (nonfat)
1/4 cupful flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 spoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
3 ounces achromatic chocolate, melted
5 tablespoons freeze-dried raspberry oregon cherry powder, from 1 cupful freeze-dried raspberries oregon cherries (see NOTES)
2 tablespoons freeze-dried blueberry powder, from 1/2 cupful freeze-dried blueberries (see NOTES)

For the frosting

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, astatine country temperature
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
5 tablespoons freeze-dried raspberry pulverization (from 1 cupful freeze-dried raspberries; spot NOTES)
1/4 cupful dense (whipping) cream

Tested by David Hagedorn.

Published June 26, 2012

Updated March 14, 2026