Hello, Spring!
Welcome Spring with this show stopper of a cake! Or, customize the colors and flavors for a special someone's Birthday.
This one begins with fresh lemons and strawberries - Yum! Four separate layers of this 10" diameter cake feature fresh strawberry jam and lemon curd in between. It's a perfect balance of tart lemons and sweet strawberries. Plus, you'll get a chance to play with colors and design and decorate it in your own style.
Line up your piping bags and favorite frosting tips and spend a day baking and cooking by yourself or get a friend or the kids involved. Or, break up the job into smaller segments by baking the cake layers one day, freezing them, and decorating another day.
Prepare two 9" round cake pans:
Butter the bottoms and sides and cut round parchment paper to fit in the bottom of each cake pan. Butter the top of the parchment paper rounds and flour the entire pan. Tap out the excess flour into the trash.
Make the cake layers:
1 C Butter
1 C Sugar
4 Eggs
1 3/4 C Flour, self-rising*
2 t Baking powder
2 T Sour cream (or Buttermilk)
1- 2 drops Yellow gel food coloring
1 t Lemon zest
2 t Lemon juice
1-2 drops Red gel food coloring
1/2 C Strawberries, very finely diced
1/2 t Strawberry extract (optional)
6 oz Strawberry jam (to spread in between the layers)
6 oz Lemon curd (to spread in between the layers)
- Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl and set aside.
- Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
- Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, one at a time and beat the mixture after each egg is added.
- Beat in the sour cream.
- Slowly add and fold in the flour mixture until everything is well combined.
- Place half of the batter in another bowl so you can separately color and flavor the layers.
- To half the batter, add a couple drops of yellow food coloring, and add the lemon zest and lemon juice.
- To the other half of the batter, add the diced strawberries, food coloring and strawberry extract.
- Pour each colored into their own prepared cake pan.
- Bake the two cake layers in a 350F degree oven for 20-25 minutes.
- If your oven heats unevenly like mine does, be sure to switch them around after 20 minutes, being careful not to bump them. I bake them in my large oven not my little oven even though they would fit.
- You want to full sized oven to bake these cakes to their best.
- Cool the cakes on a rack and slice them in half horizontally.
- To assemble the layer cake, I use a piping bag to encircle the outside edges of the tops of each of the 4 cake layers. In the center I spread a not too thick layer of strawberry jam on the two layers of strawberry flavored cake. Then spread lemon curd on top of only one layer of the lemon flavored layers.
- Assemble them with one strawberry cake layer on the bottom, then the lemon layer with the lemon curd on it on top of that, then the other strawberry cake layer on top of that, then the lemon layer minus any lemon curd goes on top.
- Refrigerate the stack of cake layers for an hour in the refrigerator.
- To frost, I tinted a 1/2 recipe of with yellow food gel food coloring and gave the stacked layers and the top one crumb coat. That's a basic thin layer that controls the crumbs before you put the final layer of frosting on it.
- Refrigerate the cake for another 30 minutes.
- Give it a final coating of frosting on the top and sides.
- Decorate the top and sides as you like. If you have a lazy Susan of some type, use it to swivel the cake, making it easier to decorate. Be creative with different colors of frosting. Use piping bags with frosting tips. Or, just use a metal offset blade spatula to make artistic vertical swipes on the sides and top. Let your kids help decorate the cake with their own ideas. Or, keep it very simple and add a few real flowers or petals on top (make sure the flowers have not been treated with pesticides.)
Change it up for other special occasions
This is a cake you can easily make for any season or occasion. Just change up the gel food coloring colors and the
flavors. Make it a peppermint cake with green food coloring. Or, make it a vanilla cake with vanilla extract and chocolate frosting, decorating it with Oreo cookies on top. Or, make it a Birthday cake with that special someone's favorite flavoring and frosting and candles on top. Or get it ready for Christmas by coloring the different layers green and red, with snow white frosting on top, enhancing it with some red Poinsettias on top.
The main thing is to have fun making and sharing this delicious cake and..."Bake your own Memories!"
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