Lemon Wedding Cake

So here it is, the post that I’ve been hinting at (rather obviously) and I’ve finally done it! The wedding cake has finally been made and cut and eaten and everything was all right, in the end. It was a bit of a bumpy road, but I made it! I’ve included the recipe for the lemon cake in this post, because I’ve already published the chocolate cake recipe here. So first off, I made the chocolate cakes on Thursday night so that they could set to be decorated on Friday.

After they both, luckily, turned out successfully, the next day I moved onto the lemon cakes. Unfortunately things didn’t go quite so smoothly here… First things first, I measured my “26cm” cake tin against mum’s “26cm” cake tin and one of them is certainly not 26cm. I’m not sure which, but there was about a centimetre difference the whole way round between the tins! This would have been more of a problem if I had only made two cakes, but I actually made a rather large error and put in a teaspoon of baking powder instead of a tablespoon… So seeing as I had two very flat cakes, I made a third cake and sandwiched the smaller cake in the middle! Luckily that was the worst thing that happened, the rest of the day was fairly smooth sailing! I was very glad to have my boyfriend with me the next day though, to stop me doing anything rash such as trying to cut a dowel down to size whilst still in the cake… Hmmm…

In the end everything turned out very well, as you can see below and Sarah loved it, which is, of course, the main thing! A definite learning curve, lots of fun and some stress, I’ve shared the lemon cake recipe below so if you want to make it too, it is a really lovely lemon cake. This recipe makes enough for a two layer 26cm cake. Happy baking!

 

Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd Frosting

Ingredients

2 full cups caster sugar

3 1/2 cups flour, sifted

2 Tbspn baking powder

1 tspn salt

250g butter, softened

4 large eggs

2 large lemons, juiced and zested

1 1/2 cups milk, room temperature

Icing

300g butter, well-softened

2-3 cups icing sugar, as required

EITHER: Store bought lemon curd OR: Lemon honey from the hot water sponge recipe

 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line two 26cm cake tins.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer) until incorporated. Add the softened butter in small pieces to the dry mixture and continue beating until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, use your fingers to blend in any lumps.
3. Add the eggs and lemon juice and zest to the milk and whisk through well (the milk may turn lumpy due to the acid from the lemon, not to worry!). Add a third of the mixture to the flour and mix well, scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is incorporated.
4. Repeat this twice more until everything is incorporated. Be careful not to over mix at this point.
5. Divide the mixture evenly between the cake tins. Bake in the middle of the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean.
6. Cool in the tins for 20 minutes, before turning out the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. When cool, decorate with the frosting, recipe below. Put the first cake layer on a plate or cake turntable and frost the top with the icing. Then put the other layer on top and frost the top (and outside if desired). Finish with some lemon zest grated on top of the cake.

This cake is best eaten within a day or two as it will not stay moist after this.

Icing Recipe

1. Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer (or large bowl with a handheld electric mixer) until white and fluffy.
2. Add the icing sugar, only one cup at a time, until the icing reaches a spreadable consistency.
3. Now add either the store bought lemon curd or the lemon honey substitute from a previous recipe.
4. Beat until everything is well-combined and the icing is fluffy. Add more icing sugar if necessary.