Lemon layer Birthday cake

I had such fun making this cake for a work colleagues birthday. The recipe is adapted from a Magnolia Bakery book, which is American and the measurements were in cups, so I have converted them as best I can into grams as I've never been able to get on with cup measures in baking. This cake is lovely and moist. The mix of flours giving a denser consistency that still manages to stay light and airy.

Ingredients:-

For the cake (all ingredients should be at room temperature)

227g unsalted butter, softened (I now prefer to use "Stork with butter" it keeps the cake moist and also lasts for longer)

400g caster sugar

4 large free range organic eggs

190g self-raising flour

160g plain flour

180ml milk

60ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tsp grated lemon zest

For the frosting

250g unsalted butter (actual butter is best here)

550g icing sugar

2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tsp grated lemon zest

A tiny bit of yellow food colouring

I also sandwiched the cake together with (shop bought) lemon curd. And I added a generous handful of sprinkles and mini party rings.

Method:- 

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and grease and line 3 8 inch round cake tins.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This is always longer than you think, I'd say a good 5-7 minutes. I usually set a timer for this because you'd be surprised at just how long 5 minutes really is, especially when you're impatient like me!

Next alternate adding your dry and wet ingredients to the butter sugar mix so a spoonful of flour, a egg and milk, lemon juice and zest etc. It's always best to start with flour and end with flour. Your mix may at this point look a little curdled (that's milk and lemon mixed together for you) but don't worry.

When everything is combined mix the batter for a few minutes longer and then distribute evenly between the 3 cake tins. I like to weigh mine to make sure that they have a pretty similar amount of batter in each but you can absolutely just eyeball this if you'd prefer.

Then pop the tins into the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the cakes are light golden in colour, have come away from the sides of the tins and bounce back in the centers.

Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes and then transfer to cooling racks until completely cooled.

While the cakes are cooling you can make the frosting, which is super easy. Add the already room temperature butter to your mixer and whip this up for a little bit just to aerate it ever so slightly. Then add the icing sugar in small amounts unless you want your kitchen covered in the stuff! Again mix this for quite some time to ensure that the frosting is as silky as possible. I don't think I mixed mine for quite as long as I should have today (I was too impatient to frost it!). 

Then sandwich the layers together with lemon curd, chill the cake for 10 minutes and then do the first crumb coat of frosting, chill again for 20-30 minutes and then do the final coat of frosting. If you want any tips on frosting a layer cake, I highly recommend heading over to YouTube and CupcakeJemma's channel. She is my absolute idol and I'd like to be her please! She has a bakery in Soho called Crumbs and Doilies and really knows her stuff when it comes to cakes.

Decorate the cake however you wish, I piped swirls all around mine with a Wilton 1M tip, popped mini party rings on top of each swirl and finished with a shower of confetti sprinkles and ta-da!