Lemon Cake with Blueberry Frosting

As we all know, I love blueberries. And in cakes, you just can't beat the Lemon-Blueberry combo, unless of course you are chocolate, which trumps all.

For this cake, I used the lemon layer cake recipe from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook, Lemon Curd from a jar, and Buttercream flavored with Lemon, Lemon Curd and Blueberry Jam.

Lemony Layers

Preheat to 350, grease 3 round 9-in cake pans, line the bottoms with wax paper.

Ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

1.5 cups AP flour

1.5 cup self rising flour (I used AP flour plus 1.5 t baking soda.)

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 t lemon zest

Directions:

In an electric mixer, cream butter until smooth. Ad sugar and beat until fluffy, about 3 min. Add the eggs one at a time. Combine the flour and add in four parts, alternating with the milk, lemon juice and zest. Divide batter among cake pans and bake for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester inserted in the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Let cakes cool slightly before removing to a wire rack.

My notes: My cake baked fast and was overdone at 20 minutes. Maybe because of this, after a few days in the case at the restaurant, it was quite dry.

Buttercream:

The lemon buttercream recipe in the Magnolia cookbook was ridiculous! It called for 2 sticks of butter to 8 cups of powdered sugar, plus 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1 t lemon zest. It was way too dry and completely not enough. Also I ran out of lemon juice and used lemon curd so it wasn't lemony enough. The part I mixed with the bluebbery jam for the inside was very good, though.

Next time, I would make a big batch of butter cream, using about a pound of butter, maybe some whipping cream and a pound or so of powdered sugar. I would divide it in half and add 1/2 cup lemon juice and some zest to one part (maybe adding some more sugar to compensate and have the right consistency) and adding about 1/2 cup blueberry jam to the other part.

To assemble, brush the layers with lemon curd and stack with blueberry frosting in between. Spread the blueberry frosting almost, but not quite, to the edge of the layers. When all three layers are in place, spread a thin crumb coat of lemon frosting over the whole cake and refrigerate for a few minutes. Then glop on the rest of the lemon frosting. You can garnish with fresh blueberries or lemon peel curls.