Lovely Lemon Cake

There's something about spring that screams desserts! This makes no sense, because we should all be trimming down for the summer months of shorts and bathing suits, but who cares. I love lemon flavored desserts, only to be topped by strawberry cake. But, I'm the only person in my family who feels this way. However, I'm making the cake, so I get to choose. This cake was so good. And even if you don't like lemon flavored cake you can use the yellow cake recipe with some other type of icing to make it non-lemon.

What you'll need:

NOTE: Take your butter and eggs out now or earlier than now, they should be at room temperature when starting the recipe. This will make things much easier and the cake will come out better.

Ingredients:

Cake
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp pure vanilla
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk

Icing
2 cups unsalted butter (4 sticks)
1 lb confectioner's sugar (about 3 1/4 cups)
2 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
pinch of salt

Optional

Candied Lemons
3/4 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of water
1 thinly sliced lemon

Baking Tools:

2- 9" round baking pans
parchment paper
pen or pencil
scissors
small bowl
3 large bowls
Electric mixer
large spatula
whisk
toothpicks
cooling racks

Optional
small sauce pan
colander

Now for some direction

Prep your pans:
Mark the bottom of your pan

Cut the parchment paper to fit inside your pan

Butter your pan

Place the parchment paper inside the pan and butter the paper

Dust with flour, tapping out the excess

In a medium to large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high until fluffy (2-3 minutes)

Beat in the vanilla
Beat in the eggs one at a time scrapping down the side as necessary

Reduce the mixer speed and add a third of the flour

Then add half of the milk, then 2nd third of flour, then rest of milk, then the rest of the flour
Do this slowly and make sure everything mixes in before going to the next step

Transfer the batter evenly into the prepared pans.

For 9" pans bake for 22-25 minutes (2-8": 25-30 minutes,1-9X13" 25-30 minutes)
Stick a toothpick in the cake's middle to make sure it's done.

Remove from oven and cool in the pan for 15 minutes

Then place on cooling racks until they are completely cool

 Note: If you cool the cakes upside down it will make them flatter, easier to stack

The filling:
I just used store bought lemon curd, I have a recipe but it take 2 1/2 hours

The icing:

Lemon icing

2 cups unsalted butter (4 sticks)
1 lb confectioner's sugar (about 3 1/4 cups)
2 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
pinch of salt

Using the electric mixer, beat the butter on high until light and fluffy (3-5 minutes)

Add lemon zest

Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually add sugar

(At this point if you were going to make vanilla icing, don't add the lemon zest and add 1tsp of vanilla extract.)

Add a pinch of salt and beat until smooth

Candied lemons

In a small sauce pan bring 3/4 cup and 3/4 sugar to a boil

Slice the lemon very thin add to the boiling suga' water
Reduce heat and let simmer 5-7 minutes
Drain and let cool on cooling rack until completely cool

Putting it all together:

I wasn't trying to be all fancy with this, but if I was, I would use a cake plate and place wax paper pieces underneath the cake to prevent getting icing on the plate.

Place bottom cake on plate, spread lemon curd (or icing if you want) onto top of cake

Place second cake on top of the first layer.

Make sure the cake is flat and get ready to apply the icing

Place large dabs of icing. It's important to cover the cake first and make it pretty, second.

Place candied lemons on top.

It doesn't look that pretty, but it was delicious.

Next time I'll have to make another type of cake because no one really likes lemon cake, but me. Chef Blackheart said he loved it... for lemon cake. Granny had about the same reaction. I thought it was great. Ryan thought it was amazing as well. Well, she is my daughter!

Good luck with your baking!