Lemon-Raspberry Cake with Meringue Topping

Mother's Day was a little different this year. My parents were home from Arizona before the day instead of on it like previous years. Since Auntie Vicki and Uncle Rob weren't going to be home (Carly graduated from Gonzaga that day), Mom and Dad hosted Mother's Day with me, Nonni, Anthony, Kati, and the boys. Because I once again had 8 egg whites in the freezer, I started looking for recipes that use them when Mom asked me to make dessert. She requested no cookies so I was a bit limited. I eventually found a food tip that suggests replacing frosting with meringue, complete with measurements for a 9x13 cake. For the cake itself, I looked through my Berries/Mixed Fruit board on Pinterest for a lemon raspberry cake (a popular flavor combo in my family). I eventually found a simple recipe from Betty Crocker's website.

Lemon-Raspberry Cake with Meringue Topping (source: cake, meringue topping)

Ingredients

Cake

• 
  1 box (15.25 oz) Betty Crocker™ Super Moist™ Yellow Cake Mix
  
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon peel (I used lemon extract)
• 2 cups fresh raspberries

Meringue Topping

• 9 egg whites (see note)
• 2 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• You can add 3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar to stabilize the meringue further, and any flavoring you like, such as 1 tablespoon vanilla (this is where I added the remaining raspberries)

Directions

1. To make the cake: Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9-inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. (since I don't have a glass baking dish, I just used one of my metal pans. Seemed to work fine.)
2. In large bowl, beat cake mix, sour cream, melted butter, lemon juice, eggs and lemon peel with electric mixer on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour in pan. Sprinkle raspberries on top. (I folded in the raspberries instead to really incorporate them.)
3. To make the meringue topping: whisk egg whites, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract in large bowl. Start slow and occasionally increase speed until stiff peaks form. (I know the site has different instructions - dissolve the sugar in the egg whites first using a double boiler then whisk to stiff peaks. I kinda just went on autopilot from whisking egg whites before. On a separate note, I folded the raspberries in at the end.)
4. Spoon dollops of meringue across the cake's surface. Using your offset spatula, spread the meringue across the surface, occasionally making dramatic swoops into the surface of the cake batter beneath so that small amounts of batter begin to marble through the swooshes of meringue. (see notes)
5. Bake 26 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

• Because I only had 8 eggs from the pinwheels, I had a figure out how to get the 9th egg white. One suggestion in the Food Substitutions Bible that I have was to mix meringue powder with water. Since meringue powder is another way to stabilize egg whites, I decided to go with this alternative. Except Target doesn't have meringue powder. Fortunately, they have Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer which worked just as well. There are also instructions on the bag to replace egg yolks so I might try that out next time I make the pinwheels. 👀👀
• I just spread the meringue on top of the cake as if I was frosting it instead of incorporating it with the cake batter like the instructions said. BIG mistake! While the meringue was essentially done after 26 minutes, the cake definitely wasn't. I left it alone at first but after letting it sit overnight, I decided to put it back in the oven and try to bake the cake more. I kept baking it for 5 minutes at a time, even stopping to pour some of the liquidy, unbaked cake batter in the garbage. I also put a sheet of foil on top of the cake (as suggested by the meringue topping instructions) but that didn't affect much. Eventually I had to stop as it became obvious that the cake wasn't baking much more. In the end, the cake was still a bit underdone but not bad. If I decide to do the meringue topping again, I think I'm going to incorporate the batter with the meringue.