Thursday, February 15, 2007

A Cake to Celebrate 60 Years

Over the weekend of Jan 19-21 I made a surprise visit to Southport, North Carolina for my mom's 60th birthday! It was my chance to try out all of those classroom skills and make a birthday cake like never before! I packed my suitcase filling it with with all of the essential cake decorating equipment--I can't imagine icing a cake without my offset spatula. I also brought a bag of Meyer Lemons, which I knew I would never find in small-town North Carolina! Very few people outside of California have even heard of these wonderful lemons which are a cross between a lemon and tangerine.

The cake was a 4-layer Chiffon (a school recipe) layered with Meyer Lemon curd (my own recipe) and frosted with Lemon Italian Buttercream (based on a school recipe). The decorations were leaves and lemons all made from marzipan that were brushed with a luster dust and which I made the week prior and brought with me. The 60 was piped with royal icing and the other piping was done in the Lemon Buttercream.

The cake was delicious, light and lemony. My one critique was that there was not enough buttercream on the outside layer. On many cakes there is too much frosting on the outside, but in this cake because the Lemon Buttercream was so tasty everyone wanted more! Overall, a wonderful cake I would gladly make again!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so glad that you posted my birthday cake so that I can testify that it truly was magnificent in taste and appearance!! Many thanks for making my 60th birthday one that I will remember always. Your are a special person and a wonderful pastry artist.

Mom

Anonymous said...

dear niece Alison...you have truly overwhelmed me with your culinary talents. Seeing it all on your blog tells the story of your growing up with an artistic offering in every direction. No wonder you are also a professional architect! Bake on...you are a number one winner! Aunt Fleur