Mother's Day Lemon Party Cake.

I wanted to get this up a few days ago but I was so busy and then I had to get my TWD up first. So here it is, a few days late but still as pretty.

Since my days lately HAVE been insanely busy...I told my Mom that she had to tell me what she wanted as a gift because I didn't have the mental capacity to try to be all creative this year. She gave me some ideas (a grandchild was one of them...nice try Mom!)...but I also told her I'd love to make her a cake as well.

She's pretty picky so I knew this was a tall order. She chose a lemon cake. Lemon with a flavor, I asked. Just Lemon..she said.

Of course, I can't just have straight lemon...as in lemon curd layered amidst white cake. So I decided to make my own kind of spin on a very-lemony cake after researching online a bit and reading through my books...using lemon for all elements but adding a bit of richness of flavor through a few other elements.

The result was Dorie's Perfect Party Cake with a rich lemon cream filling and swiss merengue buttercream lemon frosting. Using Meyer lemons that were locally grown...don't you just love the smell of fresh lemons??


Zest with it's buddy..Sugar.

Batter on this cake comes out so thick...it's almost like a cupcake batter...when you are pouring it into the pan you wonder if you did it right. Don't worry it will bake up lovely and soft.


I actually also had a friend come over for a mini-cake lesson on Saturday, and we made her Mom's MD cake as well at the same time. Same batter, but we put apricot pineapple filling inside with SMBC, it turned out yummy apparently.


My fab friend's Mom's Day cake...9" style.

I sealed up the layers for my 8" cake, which I had painstakingly cut into 5 super skinny hardtohandle layers and made the SMBC frosting on Mother's Day so it would be super fresh. Man that stuff takes forever when you have a cake to fill, frost, and then decorate. It took me about 2 hours on Mother's Day to get it to where I wanted.



The lemon cream didn't come out quite like I expected...I beat heavy cream but it got too stiff so when I added the sugar it deflated...and then adding lemon curd further deflated it. Saved it by refridgeration so it turned out fine, but it wasn't what I expected initially. Tasted YUM though.

Since my skills with decorating and all that are still kind of primitive...I am finding workarounds to try to make my cake look cute yet not too novice. I'm learning how to swirl the frosting when I can't get it super smooth...turns out cool.



Overall it turned out visusally fabulous, and I was ecstatic with the result. Everyone really loved it, especially my better half who told me to 'get your own piece!'.

The funny thing was that my Mom who made 5 requests that it be REAL BUTTERCREAM frosting...didn't like the frosting. She said it was too buttery and rich. That's REAL buttercream Mom! Go figure. I think she really wanted more like a whipped cream buttercream kind of frosting...maybe next time...if I am brave.





The basic cake recipe came from Dorie's book, which most of us are very familiar with..and you can Google 'Perfect Party Cake' to find and make it. The lemon cream was just whipped heavy cream with confectioners sugar and lemon curd. Next time I will fold in the lemon curd rather than beating it in. The frosting was SMBC, made the How to Eat a Cupcake way...love that stuff for frosting cakes, and it gets so stiff after some refridgeration...but I gotta say I don't love the 'flavor'..it's too creamy butter for me.

This cake also tastes much better at room temperature, so when you do make it, let it come out of the fridge ahead of time. I refridgerated it to set the frosting before traveling with it, but let it come to room temp then serve. The flavors come out so much better that way...and frosting softens up again.


Slice of Heaven!