I took a break from my recent craziness on Saturday to make a birthday cake for my cousin. She's lucky it fell during my 2 week break from classes! I really wanted something light in color and considered making a white cake, but I'm not a big fan because I don't think they're very flavorful. I found a great recipe (from Dorie Greenspan, as I often do) for lemon cake and butter cream frosting, both really light (I don't like when lemon cake is yellow-y, I think it looks fake). It was actually the "Perfect Party Cake" recipe, which is somewhat well-known in the strange little world of obsessed bakers.
I was surprised by the cake-very light and fluffy...almost melt-y (sorry, other baking bloggers-I can't bring myself to use the term "mouth feel"). Yum! I was worried about the frosting at first because when I tried it, I thought it just tasted like butter. But once it covered the cake, the combination of the two was delicious and very lemony! I filled the cake with blackberry jam, and decorated the top with fresh blackberries and homemade candied lemon slices. I think it came out quite beautifully, if I may say so!
Then we sliced it with a cleaver.
