A few months back I posted a picture on Instagram of a cake I made for my God daughters 1st birthday. It got such a lovely response and a few of you said you'd be interested in having the recipe, so here it is.
I was inspired to make this cake as little baby Julia loves lemons, but I still wanted the cake to be pretty and pink and I wanted it to be a tasty cake the adults could enjoy too. So the outcome, a strawberry lemonade cake! I found the recipe at the website What Megan's Making, I modified the cake recipe slightly, and substituted the icing with my mum's buttercream recipe (the same buttercream recipe that that was on all my birthday cakes as a child!).
The sweetness of the strawberry buttercream icing counteracts the tartness of the lemon cake creating something so delicious I don't even know how to describe it.
I was a bit of a tease in sharing with you the cake topper I made, as we don't sell it nor are there plans to in the future, but keep an eye out on here over the next week or so as I'll be showing you some great cake topper inspiration. (You'll notice I've added "Party" to the menu above, we're going to aim to bring you lots of party inspiration, tutorials, and recipes in the future and that's the place where all these posts will get filed!)
Happy baking,
Clare
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See the recipe after the jump...
Note on the recipe, I've posted my modified recipe here with the measurements in the way I bake, grams for weights and cups for measurements which is more of an Australian way of cooking. Any US readers would benefit from following Megan's recipe as it is written with US measurements, and UK folk can convert cups to grams using conversion websites.
Cake (baked in 2 round sandwich tins - you could do it in one larger tin, but I like the extra indulgence of getting to have more buttercream inbetween the 2 cakes!):
Ingredients
| 2 1/4 cups self raising flour 1 tablespoon baking powder Pinch of salt 1 1/4 cups buttermilk (Or 1 1/4 cups of milk mixed with a tablespoon of lemon juice and left to sit for 10mins) 4 large egg whites 1 1/2 cups sugar lemon zest from two lemons 115 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (or there abouts, I think I added more) |  |
Directions
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Prepare sandwich tins by lining with baking paper or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
| In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk and egg whites. In a large bowl, add the sugar and lemon zest and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add the butter to the bowl and cream the butter and sugar with an electric beater until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and lemon juice and beat until combined. Add one third of the flour mixture, still beating, then half of the milk-egg mixture. Repeat, ending by adding the final third of the flour mixture. Beat on medium for two minutes to ensure that the batter is thoroughly mixed and well aerated. Divide the batter evenly amongst the two tins. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until the cake springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then continue cooling on wire rack. |
Strawberry Buttercream Icing
Ingredients
125g butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespooons milk
dash of vanilla
Half punnet of freshly pureed strawberries (poured through a sieve if you don't want seeds with it. In the image above, the icing has seeds kept in it, because I think it gives the cake a nice rustic feel to it.)
Directions
Beat butter with electric beaters until white and fluffy, then add in icing sugar, milk, and vanilla and continue to beat until combined. Gradually stir in strawberry juice until it colours the icing the desired pink colour.
Ice the two cakes together (and add a thin layer of buttercream icing in the middle to hold them together). Add a ring of pastel coloured sprinkles round the top edge. Then devour!
