Lemon Cake

For me, Fall is dessert time. I think up 100 crazy dessert ideas, then make only a portion of them (which is still a large number).  This cake is actually vanilla, with lemon curd filling and lemon frosting. This recipe is the original, with no changes (other that the time the lemon curd is supposed to chill). I got the recipe from allrecipes.com (as usual) by Anela. Anyway, this cake is super moist and the filling is an amazing lemon curd (I like slowly licking it off a spoon while reading a good book) but, I would use a different frosting unless you like it really sweet.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk
•  
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 4 egg yolks, beaten
•  
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 8 inch round pans. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, mixing just until incorporated.
3. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Then invert onto wire racks to cool completely.
4. To make filling: In medium saucepan, mix together 1 tablespoon lemon zest, 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1 tablespoon cornstarch until smooth. Mix in 6 tablespoons butter and 3/4 cup sugar, and bring mixture to boil over medium heat. Boil for one minute, stirring constantly. In small bowl, with a wire whisk, beat egg yolks until smooth. Whisk in a small amount of the hot lemon mixture. Pour the egg mixture into the sauce pan, beating the hot lemon mixture rapidly. Reduce heat to low; cook, stirring constantly, 5 minutes, or until thick (not to boil).
5. Pour mixture into medium bowl. Press plastic wrap onto surface to keep skin from forming as it cools. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate 3 hours.
6. To make frosting: In large bowl, beat confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 teaspoon lemon zest until smooth. Beat in milk, and increase speed and continue to beat until light and fluffy.
7. To assemble: With long serrated knife, split each cake layer in half horizontally, making 4 layers. Place 1 layer, cut side up, on a serving plate. Spread with half of the lemon filling. Top with another layer, and spread with 1/2 cup frosting. Add third layer, and spread with remaining half of the lemon filling. Press on final cake layer, and frost top and sides of cake with remaining frosting. Refrigerate cake until serving time. 

Your cakes will bake flat if you use this method (which is way cheaper that buying Wiltons  fancy cake wrap things) so that no trimming the top is necessary. Just use an regular (old) towel.

 This recipe got me addicted to lemon curd. I don't even know if its real lemon curd, because its called lemon filling, but it's delicious whatever the name. I've adapted the original quote to: When life gives you lemons make lemon curd (or frosting, or cake). But what my brother says is clever: "When life gives you lemons make orange juice and have everybody wonder how you did it."

 

I suggest that you use as different lemon frosting, unless you have a hankering for really sweet frosting. And it's not quite lemony enough. I added extra lemon juice to fix that problem, and my frosting completely fell of the sides of the cake.  It was really weird (so please excuse the bad frosting job).  We have a family cake platter (it is shared between my aunt, and grandma's family's,) so right now it's at my grandma's house.  My parents were not willing to drive all the way there just to borrow it when I randomly decide to make a cake.  I ended up using an overturned crystal bowl as my cake stand, which as you can see, was barely big enough. 

Have your cake and eat it too! 

Maddie

Birthday Month

Sorry I haven't been able to post anything this week.  This past month has been crazy because school is starting, there were 4 birthdays, the Fair is in town and we had to do stuff for that, and we had lots of other things to do.  This year we all had family parties except for me. I had two parties because I happen to have two awesome best friends that threw me my second surprise party.  Surprise parties are awesome. Here was my birthday cake (which I decorated):

Here is my sister's pool cake (made by my mom):

And cutest of all, my younger brother's rainbow cake:

Guess what I got for my birthday? Blue wall paint (we are finally gonna paint my room!).

P.S. I'm thirteen now!

My Fair Entries

The Fair starts on the 19th and I entered three things: a cake (as usual), decorated cookies, earrings, a painted T-shirt,  and a piece of art work.  I have entered stuff into the fair for 3 years in a row.  The deadline was yesterday up and we all spent the day gathering last minute entries.  My cookies are based off of Sweetopia's Owl Cookies.  But mine are not half as good because I have only decorated a few cookies in my life and I don't have a Kopycake Projector so I drew the design on (I used pencil because the cookies are not going to be eaten).  I have been getting very frustrated lately because I can't make a good cookie and my fondant wouldn't lay flat on my cake.

I have entered a cake into the fair 2 years in a row so far and this is my 3 year (am also planning on winning first place for the 3rd time).  Here is my cake:

Here are my cookies, but only 4 out of 9 turned out good (I am a beginner): 

I think these are so cute because I made their eyes too big.

Here is the T-shirt:

I'll post a tutorial for these wire cage earrings sometime soon:

 And here is the art:

 I also entered my B (which stands for our last name)

 I hope I win for my cake! It took a lot of work and 20 dollars which is a lot of money for me.  But we saw some of the other cakes and it looks like I have some competition.
Maddie

Chocolate Lava Cakes

The other night I had a sudden urge to make something very yummy (preferable made of chocolate) and my mom completely agreed. So I found myself searching for a recipe on allrecipes.com  for chocolate lava cakes.  I had wanted to make these for quite a while and soon I found a recipe where we had all the ingredients on hand.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Butter and flour four 4 ounce ramekins or custard cups (or skip all that and use 9-10 cupcake liners like I did).
2. Finely chop the chocolate. In the top half of a double boiler set over simmering water, heat the butter until almost melted then add chocolate.  Stir until almost completely melted.
3. Beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together until light colored and thick.
4. Beat together the melted chocolate and butter. While beating, slowly pour the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, then quickly beat in the flour and mix until just combined.
5. Divide the batter between the four molds or 9-10 cupcake liners and bake at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 6 to 7 minutes. The centers of the cakes will still be quite soft. Invert cakes on serving plates and let sit for about 15 seconds, then unmold, or peel off wrapper. Serve immediately with fresh whipped cream and raspberry, if desired.   

These are actually very easy and pretty quick to make but kind of tricky to peel off the cupcake wrappers without chocolate coming out.

Keep Eating... Maddie

A Gallery of Cakes

Some of these were done a long time ago when we weren't very experienced.

 Fathers Day Tie Cake (my mom made this one)

   Volcano Birthday Cake  (my mom made this one too)

4th of July (the whole family helped here)

Frosting and Fondant Ballerina

My mom's ballerina (I still made the head)

A Cake I entered in the Fair

Cupcake with a scrapbook paper wrapper.

Basket weave white rose cake

This purse is made up of two 8 in. cakes with the 

ends cut off and frosted vertically.  The 

flowers are made of marshmallows cut with scissors.
The handle was black licorice and the flower centers were candy.

 This was for my brothers scout banquet (he was supposed to make it but it was almost all me).  We won the lamest award: smoothest icing.  The banquets theme was scouts around the world (the flag in the front says scouts around the world although it looks like scouts recycling).

Fondant covered with gumpaste carnations

 A sewing cake for my mom for mothers day.
(Check out my blog post)

This is my prized cake. I made it last year and still have it in 

a box in my closet (it is Styrofoam)

It is fondant covered with gumpaste flowers.

It took me around 13 hours to finish.

I hope you enjoyed it and were inspired!

Keep Crafting, Maddie

Mothers Day Cake

                  This is  "The Pfaff" sewing machine cake I made for Mothers Day (for my mom).  She sews a lot and I didn't know what else to put on the cake.  Everything on it is edible, other than some supports on the sewing machine.  The machine itself is made of modeling chocolate.  The needle is a skewer covered in gray gumpaste. The fabric is leftover fondant.  The border is actually gumpaste buttons.  The doughnut shaped thing is  a roll of ribbon turned sideways.  The cake is covered in wilton  buttercream (medium consistency)

           
The purple thread was made by rolling cream colored gumpaste into a log.  Next take any color of gumpaste and roll it out flat to an 8th of an inch.  Cut it to the length of the log. Now take a gumpaste tool or a knife and run lines down it horizontally.  Apply gum glue (small amounts of gumpaste mixed with about teaspoon of water) to the log and wrap the "thread" around it.  Make 2 doughnut shaped  things to go on the ends of the spool.

  Keep Decorating! Maddie