You Taste so Sweet for Only Me

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When I planned last night's menu, this lemon cake wasn't even on it, but the recipe caught my eye when I realized I had all the ingredients already here at the house so I decided, "Why not?" This was a really delicious cake and I got a ton of compliments on it. Mine looked no where near as nice as the one pictured above, but I just cut it in the kitchen and served it so no one ever knew how plain it looked. The other yummy part about this cake is that the top of the cake hardened a little bit and formed a really crunchy sugary top that stayed crunchy even under the frosting. Here is the recipe from Good Things Catered, my comments will be in parenthesis.

Luscious Lemon Party Cake

Ingredients:
Cake -
2 1/2 c. cake flour (I used Trader Joe's white whole wheat fiber which made the cake a little heavy, but also added lots of fiber per serving and still wasn't as "chewy" as typical whole wheat flour)
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder (Didn't use because I didn't have)
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 extra large organic lemons, washed thoroughly then zested and juiced separately (I used 3 small organic Meyer lemons from our tree)
2/3 c. milk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
3 egg whites, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used 1 tsp)

Icing -
4 c. powdered sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder (Didn't use because I didn't have)
tiny pinch of salt
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. shortening
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 extra large lemon, juiced (I only had small Meyer lemons so I juiced 2 of them to start with and then ended up adding the juice from a third one)

Additional lemon for decorating (Didn't do but only because I'm not the best cake decorator yet)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two cake pans. ( I only used 1 9 inch cake pan)
-In bowl of electric mixer sift and add flour, sugar, baking powder, meringue powder, salt, and zest of one lemon.
-Stir with mixer to combine, about 30 seconds.
-Add milk, oil, juice from two lemons, beaten egg whites and extract.
-Beat on medium to combine thoroughly, about 1 1/2 - 2 minutes.
-Remove from mixer and stir with silicone spatula to thoroughly combine (making sure there is no flour mixture left unincorporated at the bottom of the bowl.
-Fill prepared pans 2/3 of the way full and bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean (about 25-28 mins for 8 inch pans) (Mine took closer to about 35 minutes in a 9 inch pan)
-Remove from oven, let cool 15 minutes in pan and then turn onto wire racks to cool completely.
-Meanwhile, in the bowl of stand mixer, combine shortening, butter, and half of extract and lemon juice, stiring on low until relatively combined.
-In a separate bowl, combine sugar, meringue powder and salt, then add to mixer while still on.
-Stir, scraping down sides of bowl, until thoroughly combined, adding more lemon juice as needed.
(Add water if needed to reach desired texture.)
-Once cakes are completely cool, even out tops of cakes if needed.
-On cut side of one cake, spread generous amount of icing.
-Place cut side of other cake down onto filling and finish icing cake.
-Decorate with additional lemon and icing as desired.

All-in-all I'd say this was the perfect spring cake and would make a great dessert for Easter. I'm already trying to figure out how I can transport this cake in the car for 6 hours so that I can take one down to my Grandma when we go to visit her next week!