It seems that I’m spending most of my time lately apologizing– I’m late, I’m absent… Well. So I’m late posting this and I’ve been absent. And we’ll be absent some more for the next month, I think, as we are packing up our life and moving ourselves across the country. Carlo’s been getting shooting pains in his head, and I’ve suddenly developed a neck problem. Ha. So this is my final apology and from here on out, if we post we’ll be acting as if everything’s normal and there’s nothing to apologize about.
So here we are late with our Daring Bakers report. This Last month, Morven at Food Art and Random Thoughts chose Dorie Greenspan’s perfect party cake. Now, I’m not much of a cake baker. Too much precision, too much waiting and anxiety, too many fallen cakes. A lot of bakers had problems getting their cakes to rise, and I was no exception. My layer cake had only two layers instead of four, since I didn’t want to try slicing into my pitiful little layers. But! The cake was super-tasty. I made a strawberry-lemon curd filling to layer inside, and the buttercream was thick and delicious. For a basic cake recipe, this one is a good one. Check out some of the other bakers’ cakes by going to the Daring Bakers’ blogroll. There are some good ideas for how to get the cake to rise.
You can check out the cake recipe here.
STRAWBERRY LEMON CURD
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups fresh strawberries
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 large eggs
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup butter, cubed
Put the sugar, strawberries, lemon zest and juice, eggs and egg yolks in the bowl of a food processor and spin them until the strawberries are smooth.
Put the puree in a small saucepan, add the butter and cook over low heat, stirring often, until butter has melted and mixture thickens, about 30 minutes. Don’t allow the curd to boil.
Take the curd off the heat and cool it before placing it in clean jars and refrigerating it. This recipe makes about 2 1/2 cups of curd. It’s great for a cake layer, for spreading on eggy bread, or just to eat out straight out of the jar (I’m not ashamed…).
Happy April!
6 comments
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April 5, 2008 at 8:05 pm
danamccauley
Better late than never! Your cake looks very yummy.
Good luck with your move, your neck, etc… I hope you’ll be back among the DB crowd again soon. I’ve just joined myself and am looking forward to my second challenge this month.
See you when you get settled.
April 5, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Aoife
I love the strawberry lemon curd idea, and the decorations look great. Nice job!
April 8, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Rebecca
Moving across the country? Where to?
April 11, 2008 at 12:16 pm
EB
Oh my god it’s perfectly ‘spring’! I’ll miss you while you move. Good luck with packing everything up and heading out west? east?
April 21, 2008 at 8:09 pm
happygrub
Whoa..were u cutting the cake in half?? What a cute photo! And I’ve never heard of a strawberry and lemon curd but it sounds wonderful. Your frosting skills are much better than mine! Beautiful cake..
May 18, 2008 at 8:28 am
Victoria
This is so beautiful. What happened to you. I miss you.