lemon blueberry cake

When I saw this cake on Sweetapolita a couple of months back, I fell in love. I mean, look at the icing job! It's flawless. Then, I scrolled down, and saw that that no, it was not just a yellow cake, but a lemon blueberry lemon cake. Cha likes lemon, and blueberries, and her favorite color is purple... And I suddenly had a color scheme for her birthday.

This Lemon Blueberry cake was Cha's second birthday cake, after the Strawberry Shortcake Cake. I made the Blueberry Cake and Lemon Frosting as per Rosie's recipes, but made them into two 6 inch layer cakes and 7 standard size cupcakes. I used the white buttermilk cake layer I had left over for the middle layer, and filled the cake with blueberry jam, instead of the lemon curd proposed by Rosie.

Lemon-Blueberry Layer Cake

recipe source: sweetapolita

2 cups plus 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon pure lemon extract
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened about 20 minutes out of refrigerator
1 1/2 cups white sugar
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare three 8″ round cake pans with parchment paper, butter and flour. Sift dry ingredients into medium bowl. Transfer 1 tablespoon flour mixture to larger bowl. Add fresh blueberries and toss to coat them with flour. Set remaining flour mixture and blueberries aside.

Stir whole milk, sour cream, vanilla extract, lemon extract and lemon zest in small bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar, until pale yellow and very fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, until well combined. Mix in flour mixture alternately with milk mixture, starting and ending with flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Divide batter equally among 8″ round pans.

Bake cakes until toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks for about 10 minutes, then invert onto racks until completely cool.

Zesty Lemon Frosting

1 cup soft unsalted butter
2 teaspoons lemon zest
6 cups icing sugar
60 ml fresh lemon juice
6 tablespoons whipping cream (35% cream)
1/2 teaspoon pure lemon extract
2 tablespoons water
pinch salt
1 drop of AmeriColor “Electric Yellow” gel color (optional)

Cream butter and lemon zest in bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, about 3 minutes. Slowly add icing sugar, mixing on low speed for about 2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and beat on med-high for 3-4 minutes until very fluffy. If using color gel, add a drop or two (really, no more than that, because too much sunshine really can be a bad thing!), then beat until blended. Yields enough to frost outside of three layer 8″ round cake.

I don't know why I though I could get my cake looking as good as hers. Wait, yes, I know. I saw an online tutorial for icing cakes, and Whisk Kid makes it look so easy. And I though, I can do that. Turns out I can't. First of all, I suck at making frostings, so it probably wasn't the right consistency to start off with. Then, my middle layer had shrunk while cooling making it smaller than the others. I almost didn't post it because my pictures are so ugly! But it was a really good cake. The flavor was spot on, the texture of the cakes was moist and perfect, the icing was definitely on the sweet side, but it was good since the cakes weren't too sweet. I'll probably make it again, maybe with lemon curd instead of the jam. And hopefully, by then, my frosting skills will have improved.