Lemon layer cake with lemon buttercream roses

Birthday cake time! Not for me but for a very good friend. As I know she loves lemon cake, I decided to stick with a safe and well-trusted recipe that I have done before – Primrose Bakery’s Lemon Layer Cake. I won’t type out the recipe again, as it is the one I wrote a blog on in November for my Halloween Lemon Layer Cake.  We were going out for dinner on Friday so the cake had to be made on Thursday after work. Thankfully, it’s a fairly simple cake to make and bake – as long as you get the timings right.

This time, rather than buttering the sandwich tins and lining the bases, I used my trusty Dr Oetker Cake Release spray – it is so easy to use and does the job really well.  I think I mentioned it last time, but do make sure you keep an eye on these cakes – you do not want them to over-bake. This time, the cakes still looked slightly anaemic, but were bouncy when touched – this is what you are looking for.

As I was baking this after work, it was quite late by the time the cakes had baked and cooled, therefore, I decided to just do a crumb layer of buttercream icing on the Thursday night. A crumb layer is basically just a simple thin covering of icing all over the cake. This seals the cake and creates a good base for then icing the roses.  Leaving it overnight meant that this layer of buttercream had firmed really well and made it much easier to pipe the roses.

The buttercream is best left in the fridge overnight but needs to be taken out of the fridge for at least an hour before using, and then given a really good beat!  People are always amazed by rose swirls on cakes and cupcakes but they are really not that difficult to do. This is a good photo tutorial and there are lots of film clips on YouTube. To be honest, the main things are getting the consistency of the buttercream right, a Wilton 2D piping nozzle, steady pressure on the icing bag and lots of practice! I do them quite a bit and I still have days when they just don’t seem to go right!   

I’ve attempted this design of icing before and found the sides to be very tricky. This time, I used my tilting turntable (placed on top of a cake tin to bring it up to a good height) and this made piping the swirls onto the cake much easier!  

For full cake recipe, visit this blog post.

Filling and decorating the cake

Ingredients

1. 6 tblsp lemon curd
2. 220g butter, at room temperature
3. 1kg icing sugar
4. Juice of 2-3 lemons

To make the buttercream icing:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, juice of 2 lemons and half of the icing sugar until smooth.
2. Add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.
3. Add extra juice, if required to get the correct consistency. Beat until smooth.

To assemble

1. Place the first cake onto your plate / stand.
2. Spread 3 tablespoons of lemon curd on top of the first cake and another 3 on a second cake.
3. Carefully place the second cake on top of the first cake.
4. Place the third cake on top of the others.
5. Use a palette knife to spread a thin layer of buttercream icing evenly all over the cake. Leave to firm.
6. Fill a piping bag (topped with a suitable nozzle) with the remaining buttercream.  
7. Start by piping a rose swirl in the centre of the cake, then work outwards and down the sides of the cake.
8. Fill any gaps with swirls of icing.

Honey and lemon cupcakes

Having made Hummingbird cupcakes for the netball girls to celebrate my birthday, next step was to decide on cakes to take to work. I decided to take my actual birthday as leave, so decided to take cakes in the following Monday – which gave me the weekend to prepare! As there are quite a few people to cater for, I decided to chuck together another Sticky Ginger Cake, as I’ve made it before for work and it has gone down really well. Next, I felt that it was expected that I produce cupcakes of some kind, so decided to have another go at the Honey and Lemon cupcakes that I made recently. Finally, I decided to make some simple lemon finger biscuits – will write these up in the next blog post. 

The honey and lemon cupcakes were inspired by Martha Kearney on Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and last time I made them, I had a go at copying her Beehive style decoration. Although they tasted delicious, I wasn’t that satisfied with the overall appearance and they were very fiddly to decorate so I decided to have go with a slightly different design for the cupcakes this time. 

I was mainly happy with the overall design of these cupcakes this time – although I’m not sure the actual beehives looked quite right. I started by swirling the buttercream onto the cupcake with a large round nozzle (mine is from this set). If I were to do again, I may try using the same nozzle but instead of simple piping a swirl, building dots of icing one on top of another – this may create a better beehive. I then coloured the buttercream with green colour paste and used one of these piping nozzles (although I got mine in a set like this one from Lakeland - incredibly useful!) to pipe on the grass. 

Finally, I decorated the cupcakes with bees and flowers made from ready-to-roll icing.

The bees are actually quite fiddly to make but worth the effort:

1. Start by rolling a small cone shape of yellow ready-to-roll icing. 
2. Roll out black ready-to-roll icing on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar - it will need to be very thin. 
3. Cut into very thin strips. 
4. Dip a clean paintbrush in water and lightly run over your yellow cone. 
5. Stick two strips of the black icing onto the cone to create your bee's stripes. 
6. Use a sharp knife to make two small incisions on the back of your bee. 
7. Find two similarly sized pieces of sliced almond and dip one tip of each piece in water.
8. Insert the dampened tips into the incisions created in the bee - this will be your bee's wings. 
9. Use a black food colouring pen to add eyes.