In February love and the smell of mimosa is in the air since mimosa trees start to bloom in this season here in Andalucia. Everywhere you see yellow spots, and if the poniente (westerly wind) blows their pleasant smell indulge your senses and so does the Mimosa cake. ;-)

It's obvious from where the cake's name originates: From the yellow-shiny Mimosa Flowers. The cake is exceptionally heart-shaped since it's my contribution to my A heart for your Valentine event.

The Mimosa cake consists of a moist but still fluffy sponge cake. To get such a sponge you must whisk it well and once baked wrap it up in a kitchen towel. That's the trick. I made a lemon filling since I have tons of lemons in my garden, but you can fill it with whatever you want or your sweetheart likes. Also you can soak the sponge with some liqour. I didn't because I have no Limoncello, and I think this would be the only one that harmonize with the lemon filling.


Mimosa Cake

Sponge cake
4 eggs (M)
150 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
100 g flour
50 g Maizena
1 pack vanilla sugar

Lemon filling
2,5 dl water
1 pinch of salt
30 g butter

0,5 dl water
3 tbs Maizena
2 egg yolks (M)
130 g sugar

zest of 2 lemon
1 dl fresh lemon juice

Sponge Cake: Add eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar and salt in the bowl of your Stand mixer.

Whisk (position 4 Bosch MUM 8) until your mixture thickens and turns almost white in colour. This will take about 8 minutes. Sieve both the flour and the Maizena and gently fold into your mixture until you can see it has all mixed together nicely. Pour your sponge cake mixture into your 20 cm tin.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for approx 20-30 minutes (depending on your oven). Watch out the last minutes, mine get a little bit dark. Once cooked leave in its tin for about 10 minutes to cool a little. Unomold an wrap up in a kitchen towel and let cool completely. I let the sponge cake in the towel until the next day.

Take a large bread knife and gently cut your cake in two layers. One layer should be a little bit thicker then the other. Hollow out the thicker cake layer leaving sides and bottom about 1/2 cm and reserve the crumbs.

Lemon Filling: Bring 2,5 dl water, salt and butter to a boil. Remove from heat. Dissolve Maizena in 0,5 dl water, add egg yolks and sugar. Whisk well. Pour gently into the hot water/butter mixture whisking constantly, return to heat bring to a boil. Remove from heat, add lemon zest and juice stirring until combined. Pour 2/3 of the mixture into the prepared sponge cake.

Place your lid on top. Cover the whole cake with the remaining filling, spread the crumbs over the whole surface, make them stick pressing gently it down with your hands. Let cool at least 1-2 hours.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

The "A Heart for your Valetine" roundup can be found here.

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