My birthday's next week, and that means I get to make my cake and eat it too! Sweet! I'm looking forward to a low-key pre-birthday weekend of relaxing (since my actual birthday is on a Monday - booo!), but, if nothing else, I insist on a cake. There is nothing wrong with a bakery-bought cake, but I'm looking forward to finally having the chance to bake something myself.
In recent years, I made a white cake with raspberry filling and icing, a yellow cake with milk chocolate icing, and a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. This year I'm thinking a lemon cake, maybe with a cherry icing or filling, too. The last time I can recall that I made a lemon layer cake I was following a recipe from Southern Living for a lemon meringue cake. It was a near disaster, due to a classic case of not reading the recipe all the way through. It was after 1 a.m. by the time the cake layers had cooled (on a work night). When it came time to assemble the cake itself, I put the bottom cake layer on my tupperware cake stand, frosted it, added the next layer, and now, time to do the meringue. Let's see, turn the page to see the final step of the recipe, and...WHAT THE F*CK?! I'm supposed to have it on an oven-proof cake stand so that I can apply the meringue and then BAKE the finished cake so the meringue browns? Um. Who thought that up? Who has an oven-proof cake stand?! Recipe FAIL. I was able to save it from total disaster by whipping up a buttercream and throwing that on top, but it certainly wasn't the lemon meringue cake I had hoped for.
Btw, since then, folks have come up with much more sensible approaches to a lemon meringue cake, including this beauty from Food & Wine. Or these sweet little cupcakes from Our Share of the Harvest. Nevertheless, it's not a lemon meringue cake I'm after here - I'll save that for some other time. It's a lemon layer cake. I'm thinking I might use this recipe from Fine Cooking as my base, maybe using the lemon curd to decorate the icing instead of as a filling, since I'm craving a cherry or berry filling here.
I've had awful lemon cakes before - where the cake itself is dry, making the cake seem stale. There are the ones that lack true lemony flavor. Or the ones that get the cake texture or flavor right but then get topped with gobs of frosting that's way too sugary, ruining the whole effect. And it's a layer cake I'm after, not a lemon pound cake with a sugar glaze. So if you know of a good recipe, let me know! Otherwise, I'll let you know how the adapted Fine Cooking one comes out.
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