TWD - The Perfect Lemon Party Cake

It's here! The Perfect Party Cake was finally chosen, by Carol of mix, mix...stir, stir. This is the cake that I looked at again and again in the book and thought "I could never pull off something that looked that good."

I was right.

I made the ugly duckling of Perfect Party Cakes.

Since I cut the recipe in half, I wanted to find a suitable pan to use so I could still make four layers. I knew I wanted this to be a lemon party cake, so I opted for Dorie's lemon cream instead of raspberry preserves. Checking out the volume of the 9" round cake pan, I found that an 8x8 pan has the same volume. This was good news since I could cut the cake in half before dividing the halves to get 4 layers. It would make a nice loaf cake size but without the sloped sides that my loaf pans have. I was confident, enthusiastic, eager to get to baking.

I read and reread the recipe and Dorie's post on Tuesdays with Dorie a few weeks ago. Dorie posted some tips to help us all have successful Perfect Party Cakes. I had all my ingredients at room temperature and was ready to go.

First, I made the lemon cream. It was mostly uneventful, except for the part where Dorie says to strain the curd into the jar of a blender. I must have an excellent strainer, because it didn't let anything, curd or lemon zest, get through, so in frustration I just dumped everything in there and hoped that several minutes of blending at high speed would eliminate any traces of zest.

Later the same day, I started on the genoise. I was so excited because all of my ingredients were measured and at room temperature, and I just knew it was going to be a great baking experience. The genoise came together easily and I tucked it into the prepared 8x8 pan, smoothed the top and popped it in the oven. Since the pan was a little different shape and I didn't want any surprises, I set the timer for 28 minutes (the recipe calls for baking it 30-35 minutes). When the timer went off, I turned on the oven light and saw it had pulled away from the sides of the pan.

Yikes! How could this thing be pulling away from the sides already?!? I yanked it out of the oven, noticing it hardly rose at all. Crushed, despondent and generally experiencing the classic stages of grief (NO! This didn't just happen! Why me? It can't be! This is so unfair!...), I resolved to push on and complete the blasted thing, thinking all the while "THIS is what I do to relax on a Sunday? I mean, really?" Great attitude, huh?

Poor little genoise.

Guess I didn't smooth the batter in the pan so well after all. I set about making the buttercream, which was fairly easy, and a good upper body workout to boot. When it was finished, I looked into the bowl and wondered how on earth I would get that small amount of buttercream to fill and cover the entire cake. I retrieved the lemon cream from the fridge, whisked it like crazy to loosen it up, then sliced open my pathetic little cake.

I had plenty of the lemon cream, not so much of the buttercream, and the ridiculously tiny layers. All went well until I got to the very top layer. Dorie says to place the cut side down, and since my cake was very suntanned when I rescued it from the oven, I had a hard time covering the browning with the light buttercream. By this time, the buttercream was very soft, and every time I took a swipe at it with the offset spatula to fix one area that was showing, I took off a large swath of the frosting in that area. Argh! Finally, I surrendered to the coconut, figuring it's a great concealer.

Immediately, I photographed my homely Imperfect Party Cake and then sat down to enjoy a slice (was it for dinner? pre-dinner? snack?) I was blown away by the wonderful combination of lemon flavors with the different layers of textures. Personally, I thought the coconut detracted from my transcendent lemon experience, so I will leave that off next time.

I had considered making this a chocolate perfect party cake, because if you're talking about perfection and cakes, chocolate's a requirement in my house. But I resisted and I'm glad I did because the lemon was so light and refreshing.

(I must have taken 20 photos of this slice of cake. 18 had that worm-looking thing on the bottom. Why did I not notice this when I was taking the photos??)

I know you're wishing you could kill off a bunch of eggs and butter on a relaxing Sunday afternoon, so you should join us. We're accepting members again, and the best thing is that you get to cook along with some mighty great bakers, from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours. Check out the website for more information on joining. We'd love to have you.