Of Lemony Birthday Cakes

Oh Lemony goodness, I love you. Ever since I made lemon bars a few weeks ago, I've been thinking about making another lemony dessert. The perfect occasion came up: My birthday. I also found the perfect cake: Lemon Curd Cake. I got the recipe for this cake from BBC.

There are three parts to this cake: The cake, the curd and the icing. 

The cake:

The zest of one lemon

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 1/2 cup self raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

170g butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

To make the cake, mix every thing together in a bowl until smooth and creamy. The divide the batter between two 8-inch pans and bake for about 35 minutes. Like any cake, it's always better to check if the center feel springy when touched. I actually baked mine for a little less than 35 minutes.

The curd:

While waiting for the cake, I decided to start on the curd. The instructions were easy enough to follow, but I still had one problem: I've never had lemon curd before. Which meant that I had no idea how thick was thick enough, and I had totally forgotten to watch videos to figure out how thick was thick enough. Thankfully, it still came out pretty well.

1 lemon, juice and zest

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

60g unsalted butter (Ok, the recipe actually says 2oz which is 56g, but I figured, what harm could 4g more do?)

Place lemon zest and sugar in a bowl. Whisk together the eggs and the lemon juice, and pour over the sugar and zest. Whisk everything together. Cut the butter into little pieces and add to the mixture. Place the bowl over a barely simmering pot of water. If you have a double boiler, you can use that. Stir frequently until thick. 

I was afraid that the curd would curdle on me, but it didn't and I was actually able to leave it on the stove for a few short minutes to check on other things. I think the key to this is just keeping an eye on it and whisking very frequently. I heard that it does curdle, you can simply take it off the heat and whisk until the lumps disappear, then just strain the curd when you're done.

The icing:

This is where I hit a little stumbling block. See, I had decided earlier that I didn't need to buy more confectioner's sugar, mostly because I had decided not to reduce the sugar in this recipe for my dad. Hey, it's my birthday after all. As a compromise, and also so I wouldn't have to keep thinking about his sugar levels, I decided not to make a lot of icing. The recipe calls for:

zest of one lemon

1/2 cup icing or confectioner's sugar

2-3 teaspoon lemon juice

Mix everything together until you get a soft runny consistency. Let it stand for about 5 minutes before using it. 

Since I didn't make enough icing, my cake ended up having a sugary glaze instead of the delicious white icing you see on the BBC website. Oh well. You can also decorate your cake with lemon slices. To add a touch of color, I added strawberries on top.