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Make-a-Cake Series: English Lemon Cake

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My mother-in-law is English.
She was born in England and met my father-in-law at church.
He was stationed in England with the Air Force.

They were married when she was 18 and moved to the US with their small little girl when she was 19. 
They have a really sweet story.
Last week was my mother-in-law’s birthday. 
She loves lemon cake.

I wanted to share with you the Lemon Cake I made for her. 
It’s called English Lemon Cake for my mother-in-law.

I found a great lemon cake recipe from Martha Stewart’s website.
We all know you can’t go wrong with Martha.

It even came with instructions to candy the lemons for the top of the cake. So clean and simple. 

I also used Martha’s lemon curd recipe to add a intense lemon flavor as the filling.
Lemon curd is a spreadable cream that can be used as a filling or in tarts. It has a sweet lemon taste at first and then the tart comes forward as you swallow, giving the perfect balance of sweet and sour. 
Can you tell I LOVE lemon curd?

Then I topped the cake with Martha’s whipped frosting that was suggested to pair with the cake.
It’s like homemade cool whip.  Light and fluffy. And it’s gotta be what a cloud in candy land would taste like.  I’m sure of it! :)

Martha did not disappoint with these recipes!

Here are all the links for these recipes:
Lemon Cake 
Whipped Frosting
Lemon Curd
Here are the steps I went through to make my cake come together for the party.
 **All of the cooking instructions are in the recipes, this is just the order I went in**

The night before the party I made the lemon curd in a pot on the stove.

I strained it and put it in Tupperware in the refrigerator to cool and set over night.
The morning of the party. I made the lemon cake cake.
Creaming the butter and sugar.
The finished batter.

Then I put the batter in greased and floured 8 inch baking pans. 

To candy the lemons, cook them in equal parts of water and sugar. 
This will make the lemons like candy and create a lemon flavored simple syrup.

Cool the lemons on parchment paper. The recipe says to use wax paper….either would work.
I brushed my cooled cake with the lemon simple syrup before I put on a layer of lemon curd.
Then put the top layer on the cake and add another layer of lemon curd to the top of the cake. 
Now refrigerate the cake for a few hours. I did this to get the lemon curd on top to set up. Then I could spread whipped frosting without mixing the two. 
Three hours before the party I make the whipped frosting with a  double boiler

Then I poured it into my mixer, to whip. 
This is what it looked like when I started. 
This is how big it got.
The recipe said to get the frosting to stiff peak stage. 
Stiff peak will look like this when you pull your beater out of the frosting.
It is not ready yet if the peak on top flops over.

I pulled the cake out of the fridge and frosted it with my whipped frosting.
If you need help with this stage check out this post.
I just iced the top of the cake flat and the sides messy. 
Just like the Flag cake.
The whipped frosting is kinda delicate.
I had to frost the cake right away but it still looked and tasted great 3 hours later when we ate it. 
And it didn’t last long!

I hope you enjoyed this tribute to the English and or course Martha Stewart!

Happy Decorating!

Ashley Johnston

Administrator at Make It & Love It
Ashley Johnston is a professional DIY costume maker, sewist, crafter, and owner of Make It & Love It. She is a mom of 5 and a wife to a very patient (with the craft clutter) husband. In case you’re wondering, she always chooses crafting/sewing/designing over mopping/dusting/wiping base boards……but bathrooms/laundry/full bellies are always attended to. Whew!

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Hi, I'm Ashley

Hi, I’m Ashley—the DIY-enthusiast behind this crazy blog!

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