My parents were planning a visit, and their birthday had just passed, so I decided to throw them a little birthday party while they were here. We invited over my parents siblings who live around here, and voila a party.
Now, of course, a birthday party must have a cake. So what cake? I let my parents choose. Their first choice was carrot, but I laughed at that because everyone wants a carrot cake these days. My parents wanted to let my creative juices flow, so they asked for a lemon cake. My mom stipulated that she really likes dense cakes.
I read lots of lemon cake recipes, and most of them boast that they are light and fluffy, so it took a while to find one that sounded good. I settled on a lemon version of the grapefruit cake from Thomas Keller's book Ad Hoc at Home, which I had just gotten Wes for fathers day. The description says it is an all purpose cake, which seems like a cross between a sponge and a quick bread or a muffin. Sounded dense, so I tried it out.
This recipe suggests a light glaze as a frosting, but I wanted to make a more decorated cake so I went on a quest for a good filling and frosting. I tried out the lemon curd recipe from the Cake Bible, and I tried out a white chocolate ganache from Chocolate. Well, I didn't cook the curd long enough so it was quite runny, and the ganache didn't set up like I thought, so it was also runny. The cake was quite dense and really sticky due to the fact that you puncture it and soak it in lemon syrup, so I thought cutting it and layering it would be difficult. I had this awesome vision of creating a dam of icing, and filling the top with curd, so it had a nice yellow top. Unfortunaltey when I tried something like that, everything just spilled off the top, and the cake was covered in a gooey white chocolatey lemon curdy mess. I did not take a picture of this practice cake, but it tasted ok.
So the day came to make the actual cake, and I really didn't know how it would turn out. I found a different white chocolate ganache recipe from the Cake Bible, based on whipping cream and pouring melted white chocolate in it. I thought this might be more stable for frosting. And I thought if I cooked the lemon curd longer, it would congeal more. Well, I cooked the curd longer than I thought, and I was worried it was spoiled...but it actually turned out ok. But the second ganache recipe was also a fail. When I put the chocolate into the whipped cream, it turned into a clumpy mess. Maybe the chocolate was still too warm. I get impatient sometimes. To any bakers out there...what is the deal with white chocolate ganache? How do you get something with the consistency of a regular ganache?
In the end, I resorted to a lightly lemon flavored all butter buttercream (my mom really likes butter). I knew it would set up well, and hold shape to make the dam for the lemon curd. The end result was really delicious, and I think looked nice too! I got compliments from the birthday boy and girl and the rest of the family. I got 2 types of advice....1) serve the cake un-frosted, it has a great lemon flavor on it's own. This makes sense, given that's what Thomas Keller intended anyway ;) and 2) fill the cake with lemon curd as well as putting it on top, some people really liked that extra tartness.
So despite all the failed ganache, the cake was a success! Here are the photos!
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