A Lemon Cake Weekend

This past Friday night, exhausted from the week I decided I had to make a lemon cake on Saturday to ease my mind and completely veg out. But it wasn't going to be just any lemon cake; I like layered cakes with lots of different fillings and character so I decided on a four layer one with lemon curd, deliciously light lemon cake and lemony buttercream frosting. I added blueberries and raspberries as a garnish because it's spring and why not live a little right? Truthfully, cake isn't my favorite thing to eat but for some reason constructing one always sounds like a good idea.

THE FACTS: This cake will not disappoint- Moist, full of lemony goodness and completely balanced, I dare say it may be my "go to" lemon cake...though, how often do you make lemon cakes these days? I found the recipe here, at Epicurious.com (I know, I find everything there). The only change I made was doubling the lemon curd to have some leftover and leaving out the xanthan and guar gums (I was too lazy to find them in the store). Beware, the lemon curd will take much longer to thicken up without adding the guar gum (you'll probably have to stir it for a good 10-15 minutes). Oh and as for the rice flour in this recipe, I ended up using it since I was curious but you can easily sub in All Purpose Flour. I ended up loving the flavor of rice flour, by the way.


My easy way to cut parchment paper into a perfect circle. Just cut where you see it creased...

My suggestion of how to use your microplane as to avert a huge mess...I hate messy kitchens. Seriously.


It became a "Lemon Cake Weekend" opposed to a "Lemon Cake Saturday" because on Sunday I used the leftover cake (oh, I didn't tell you...I made double the amount of cake since my first batch I only put 1/3 the amount of baking powder on accident...woops!--it still turned out delicious though...deliciously dense) to make my first ever trifle! I highly recommend these for a party. Not only are they super easy but are beautiful and yummy as can be.

I used the whipped cream mixture ratio from this recipe (subbing mascarpone cream in for cream cheese) but ad-libbed from there using my leftover cake, spreading the leftover lemon curd as one layer and using both blackberries and strawberries in two separate layers. I cut them up, put them in separate bowls and let them macerate for an hour or so with lemon juice and sugar (more sugar for the blackberries). I let my dad use this for a party he had and it was a hit!