Triple Lemon Cake

Here is the little bit of art I never get around to posting. I created this poster and invitation for a wedding party for two friends of mine who got married in Italy. This party was for friends and family that could not attend the Italian wedding.

I love lemons. This has homemade lemon curd, fresh lemon juice in the cake and lemon buttercream icing. I am not especially crazy about cake, but this is a lemony moist cake that even I loved. I hosted a wedding party for dear friends and decided to see if I could make a tiered wedding cake. This was easy enough for even someone like me who had never done it before. I just doubled the recipe to make the extra layers. The key to this is to freeze the cake until you need it which freed up time I needed to do all the cooking for the party. I found this recipe on the blog “Life, Love and Sugar”. Using a product called “cake release” which I found at Michael’s worked great on the cake pans. I did manage to take a couple of photos… Double the lemon curd so you have enough to use on something else.

Ingredients

Cake

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

2/3 cup oil

2/3 cup fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup sour cream

Lemon Curd

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 1-2 lemons)

2 tsp finely grated lemon zest

1/3 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

3 tbsp butter (I used unsalted)

Lemon Buttercream

1 1/2 cups butter

1 1/2 cups shortening

12 cups (3 lbs) powdered sugar

3 tsp finely grated lemon zest

6 tbsp fresh lemon juice

3/4 tsp vanilla

1-2 tsp water – plus more to the consistency you want

Directions

Cake

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl and whisk together.

2.Add eggs, oil and lemon juice. Beat until smooth.

3. Add sour cream and beat until smooth.

4. Bake at 350 degrees in two 8-inch pans for about 25 minutes or until done.

Lemon Curd

1. Combine all ingredients in a double boiler (or in a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water, like I did).

2. Heat while stirring constantly with a whisk.

3. It is done when it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. You will be able to tell it has thickened, but I wouldn’t say that it’s “thick.”

4. Refrigerate until cool and thick.

Lemon Buttercream

1. Beat butter and shortening together until smooth.

2. Add 6 cups of powdered sugar, one at a time, beating to combine.

3. Add lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla and combine.

4. Add the remaining powdered sugar and beat to combine.

5. Add water to get the consistency you want, starting with 1/2 tsp, beat to combine.

To assemble the cake:

1. Divide the cake into four layers by slicing each cake in half.

2. Fill two layers with lemon buttercream and the other two with lemon curd.

3. Frost the outside of the cake.

Freezing a cake

Bake the cake and cool each layer on a wire cake rack.
Wrap each layer in plastic wrap. I usually wrap it with two pieces to make sure it is covered well.
Wrap each layer with aluminum foil.
Take the frozen cakes out of the freezer and let them thaw a little while still wrapped.
Unwrap the layers and level them. Leveling means you cut off the dome with a serrated knife to make the cake even for decorating.
Don’t level when the cake is completely frozen or it might cause it to crack or pieces may break off.
Then, fill the layers of the cake with frosting and fillings and stack the cake making sure each layer is level.
Next, dirty icing or crumb coating and place it back in the freezer for about 20 minutes before adding the decorative layer of frosting. This will help the dirty iced layer set up so you can add the decorative layer of frosting without pulling crumbs into the top layer of frosting.