Lemon Curd Layer Cake.. & Scary Food Things

Over the last few years, I’ve excitedly tackled a lot of food projects that have always scared me – breads, complex Persian dishes and even quiche. But I never tried a layered cake – I always imagined needing some sort of Rube Goldberg-esque contraption to make one and a degree in pastry science.

Lemon Curd Layer Cake

With a glorious weekend of nothing in front of me last week, I decided to finally face my fears. I spent hours reading different recipes (side note: this is probably my favorite part of the cooking/baking process – anybody else with me?) and finally settled on a simple 1-2-3-4 Vanilla cake, lemon curd and swiss buttercream frosting. The result? A good-looking, glorious-tasting layered cake. The cake is not too sweet and the lemon curd gives a beautifully light ‘zing’ in each bite.

Lemon Curd Layer Cake

Lemon Curd Layer Cake: Fully Frosted

Oh not to mention how incredible my apartment smells when the cakes were baking!I discovered that making it actually wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was fun – really fun.

1 2 3 4 Cake base

Now I have a massive cake that seems like it could feed 16 people in my fridge – anybody want to come over for a slice?

Cakes drizzled with lemon curd

A few of the tips that really helped the process: freezing the layers before assembly – making them more manageable  using wax paper underneath the cake while frosting and doing a crumb coat.

The crumb coat is key, to seal in all the crumbs before you shmear it with frosting!

I used Smitten Kitchen’s cake and lemon curd recipe both found here. The frosting is a Swiss Buttercream adapted from a few different recipes – basically this one for the 9-inch cake but only used 2.5 sticks of butter (!!!).

Lemon Curd Layer Cake

Next on my list? Real sourdough starter.

Can anybody relate to this moment?

Tell me I’m not alone: what food-fears have you overcome or want to?