For Mother’s Day I wanted to make something amazing to take to my mother-in-law’s. I know they favor lemony desserts and so I offered to bring this cake that I already had on my “need to make this one of these days” list.
My aunt makes an amazing lemon cake that I have always liked. It starts from a box, and I know if has some pudding mix in it.. and then she pokes holes in the top and mixes powdered sugar and lemon juice and pours it over the top of the cake… I decided I wanted to try and make something similar, but maybe “fancier” looking, since hers doesn’t actually have frosting or anything on it.
I found this recipe while perusing different lemon recipes and I thought it sounded amazing… plus it is accompanied by a light frosting so I could “fancy” it up. I pretty much just followed the recipe with only a few minor changes. A few of the comments recommended using lemon cake rather than yellow, so I went with that. (I am of the opinion that it’s difficult to get desserts too lemony.) For the icing I used lemon juice rather than extract, cuz well, I don’t have extract.. and I used 2x as much. Also, I don’t have a 10×15 inch pan. (Seriously?! Who has a pan that big?) so I did half at a time using an 8×8 pan, and just slopped some of the icing in between.
I think the “beat for 4 minutes on high” part made the the batter uber smooth and the cake itself looked like velvet coming out of the oven. Also the comments said to definitely keep the cake in the fridge – the cool whipped icing is key for the refresh-ness of this cake!
Here is the final picture:
I left it pretty plain looking… and of course, here is the cut picture:
Served with fresh cut up strawberries of course. It paired perfectly! This cake was YUMmy! Super smooth and light and moist. I wished there was more of the icing. It is definitely better cold right out of the fridge. I think the strawberries were an essential part, I don’t think I would make it again unless I had the fresh strawberries for it.
For “fresh” strawberry definition, see this post!
Since we are lucky enough to have both families in town, we spend brunch/lunch with my in-laws and dinner with my family. I told my family I was bringing strawberries. I don’t know what they were expecting, but I brought these:
My grandma loved the strawberries (yes they are fresh!) so much I am making her some for her bunco group later this week. (The cups near the center are filled with chocolate drizzled walnuts.)
After brunch with the in-laws I had HALF of the lemon cake left over. So before heading to my family dinner, I stopped home and used the leftover frosting and frosted the cut side. It looked good as new, you couldn’t even tell that it was reused!
**Coming up next… I am making my own birthday cupcakes!
Cookie Carrie 