Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Blueberry Filling (vegan option)

Hope everyone is having a lovely summer so far! I made this amazing and beautiful 4 tiered cake for my birthday this month! I think this may be the first time I made a 4-tier cake so it is very special to me!

This cake is showstopping with it's high layers and colorful cake and fillings! It will be great for a special occasion or nice afternoon tea. It is also surprisingly easy to make if you have a little bit of knowledge in baking.

My suggestion would be to make the blueberry jam the night before then the cake the nest day.  You could make the frosting on either day but I liked making it on the same day as the cake as it was cooling in the fridge. I highly suggest making the cakes and then saran wrapping them once cooled to place in the fridge for a couple hours as this will make it a lot easier to cut and add your fillings. 

You could make this 4 tier or just leave as a two tier if you like as well. You could even half the cake recipe if you don't need so much cake. This would give you one cake to bake and cut in half if desired. 

I made some lilac sugar a couple days before to put on top of my cake for a nice decoration and some floral notes. If it's lilac season for you this might be something you like to try! This isn't necessary and may make your cake a little messy but I thought it was a nice touch. For my lilac sugar I placed about 1/2 cup of fresh, cleaned, and patted dry lilacs in about 1 and a half to 2 cups of sugar. Then I left it for a couple days, making sure to shake everyday. If you don't shake then the sugar will stick together! I made this mistake one year and it wasn't fun. You should be able to leave the crystallized lilacs in the sugar or you could also strain them out.

You can check out where I adapted this recipe from here. Please check it out as the author gives some great detail about why she used certain ingredients. 

I love lemons, poppy seeds, and lilacs so I felt like this was the cake for me on my birthday! It turned out incredible and have rave reviews with those I shared it with. 

Best of all this is a pretty healthy cake! I used whole wheat flour and olive oil which are both excellent substitutions to make something sweet a little healthier. There is still quite a bit of sugar in this so to make it even healthier you could try coconut sugar or another sweetener.

The cake is layered with a homemade blueberry chia jam and cream cheese frosting. The blueberry jam is soooo good! I would highly suggest doubling it so you have more to put on your cake than I did. I ran out of jam (*cough* wasn't paying attention) to put on the last layer and I also think the putting some extra jam on the others wouldn't hurt. You could also layer with a different type of jam if you like. Honestly though if you have extra, I don't think that would be an issue as you'll definitely eat it with something else. 

For the cream cheese frosting, make sure you use vegan cream cheese and coconut oil (as I did) or vegan butter if you wish to make it completely vegan. You could also make a different type of vegan vanilla frosting and I think that would be great. 

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Blueberry Filling

Blueberry Jam
3 cups blueberries (I used frozen)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tbsp chia seeds

Cake
1 2/3 cup almond milk
1/2 cup lemon juice (3-4 lemons)
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp lemon zest
1/2 cup olive oil
1-2 tsp lavender extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
4 tbsp poppy seeds

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup (8 ounces) cream cheese
1 tsp elderflower drink concentrate
4 cups powdered sugar

Directions

Jam:

1. Place blueberries, ground ginger, maple syrup, cinnamon, and lemon juice in a saucepan on high heat. Bring mixture to a boil. This may take a few extra minutes if you're using frozen berries. 
2. As the mixture cooks, pop any berries that you need to with the back of a wooden spoon. Stir frequently
3. Cook for about 10 minutes. This may be shorter or longer depending on if you used frozen berries and how much you used. The jam should have reduced and thickened a bit
4. Remove from heat and stir in chia seeds to thicken. 
5. Once jam has cooled, you can move to a container to store in the fridge until you're ready to use it

Cake:

1. Preheat oven 350F. Grease and line two 9 inch cake pans (you can use a different size but remember to adjust bake time)
2. Zest lemons until you get 2 tbsp of zest. Juice lemons until you get 1/2 cup juice.
3. Stir almond milk and lemon together in a bowl and allow to curdle for a few minutes
4. In a large bowl, stir flour, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Pour in milk mixture and stir.
5. Next stir in olive oil, zest, lavender extract, almond extract, and poppy seeds until combined. Do not over mix
6. Pour batter evenly into you cake pans. If you only have one like I did then you'll have to bake, allow the first to cool, and then bake your second.
7. Arrange cakes in middle of oven and bake for 30-35 minutes until cakes are lightly golden brown and a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs
8. Remove from oven and allow cakes to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then remove from pan to allow to cool fully
9. Once cooled, wrap cakes in plastic wrap and store in fridge

Frosting:

1. To a large bowl, add in coconut oil and cream cheese. Beat on low until mixture is creamy
2. Gradually add in powdered sugar, lemon zest, and elder flower concentrate then beat until smooth and creamy

Assemble

1. Slice your two cakes in half horizontally. I did this by placing my cake on a flat surface and then with one hand on top, slicing through with a serrated knife. This can be a little tricky if you've never done it before. Make sure to keep the knife as straight as you can and if your knife isn't long enough, then you may need to twist your knife or turn your cake to get every edge
2. Place one of your quarters on to your plate, spread some cream cheese on the cake and then spread your jam on top of that
3. Place next cake layer on top and then do the same to this layer
4. Now place one more layer and do the same. For this layer I ran out of jam so I drizzled some elder flower concentrate to add something
5. Place your last cake on top and with any cream cheese or jam, you can decorate as you like. Top with lilac sugar if using
6. Slice cake and enjoy!