Thursday, August 5, 2010

The Lemon Meringue Cake Repeat Post & Woody's Lemon Luxury Layer Cake aka 'WLLLC'

The cake was Heaven from beginning to end. There was, however, one thing amiss:  It was the wrong cake! Or, one might say, it was the right cake at the wrong time. Marie kindly informed me, when I sent her a picture of it, that it wasn't the one she had in mind for that date. After laughing and laughing, it was, of course, apparent that I had just seen "... Lemon .... Cake" on the Heavenly Bakers' calendar, and happily went off, bought lemons - and baked the cake. So, sometime in the future, I now hoped, perhaps I could make "Woody's Lemon Luxury Layer Cake" while the group makes the "Lemon Meringue Cake."
Briefly, the cake:
Rose's lemon curd is velvety and just tart enough. 
It was great fun to finally heap the beautiful Italian meringue on top of the cake, swirl it, and watch it turn golden in the oven for a few minutes. Magical!
So, a happy ending for this Lemon Meringue Cake. It was so well received that there actually was not enough to go around. "Next time," they said, "please make two." I just smiled and winked at Rose.
And now to the task at hand: 

Woody's Luxury Lemon Layer Cake. . . 

 I shall reverse in time and prepare Woody's cake. What better way to get on track again?  Since the Heavenly Bakers have already done this, I will keep my descriptions, step-by-step comments, and photos brief.

Here is the finished cake for my friend's birthday:


What you see for decoration are white currants and curd swirls.
It was late or I would have piped with my new blue polycarbonate tips.

I love this cake! However, I would not do it all in one day. For me, it worked better doing the curd and the buttercream the day before. This curd is absolutely perfectly luxurious for the 'luxurious' cake. I have tried Tiptree, and in emergency it is fine, but for serious curd! This is it.
I didn't photograph the buttercream process for this cake. I will say that next time I will double the buttercream since I ran out after crumb coat. It would be fine to freeze the leftovers.

A small mis en place
Still battling my oven, I decided to trick it and set for 355' instead of 350'. I timed it for 30 minutes, between the 25-35 minutes specified by recipe. By Jove, it worked.


And then a peculiar thing happened - the recipe tells me to cut the two layers in half. Spread the curd on the bottom layers. Add the top layers. Place one 'set' on top of the other. And -What? I counted. I drew. I summoned my husband from the tv. Whatever I came up with, I ended up with an unfrosted center layer, to which I finally applied buttercream, which wasn't all bad an idea, even if I had misread the recipe. This cake is, indeed, luxurious with it's 17 eggs, and white chocolate, and is now one of my favorite cakes of all time. So very light, layered flavor of lemon and white chocolate. My friend expresses the same sentiments. This birthday girl-friend allowed me to bring home a piece each for my husband and myself, hid two pieces for herself - And ~~~ nobody knows where the rest of this fabulous creation is to be found! 
Thank you, Woody.



11 comments:

  1. Gorgeous cakes Joan!

    For the WLLLC, I agree that the part about putting the cake together was confusing. But Rose did say to put buttercream between the 2 cakes: "Spread the top of the first set of layers with about 3/4 cup of the buttercream." This sentence is in the middle of the 2nd paragraph - not in the same section as where she said to put lemon curd in between the split layers.
    I know.. confusing! I had to read it twice tonight to find where she said that.

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  2. Thanks Jenn: Funny how sometimes we are just required to use our brains in a pinch, lol!

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  3. I agree with Jenn! Gorgeous Cakes!

    I don't know why for both cakes that involved lemon curd, i made a lot of mistakes..lo! Not with the lemon curd but everything else! I think me and lemon curd cakes doesn't get along every well..:P

    Well, Joan for most part of the recipes when they are 5 pages long, i get confused most of the time..hahahaha..

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  4. I really like lemon curd. like a lot. i made a lemon curd with fennel cake that was good. this cake, though, looks better.

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  5. Yeah Faithy, I get caught up in one paragraph procedure and realize I am out of order - Finally learning the 3x additions of 20 sec and then raising speed for 1.5 min. That alone saves me three steps and 3 minutes..lol. You are simply amazing in your baking and cookies that are so awesome!
    Damaris: How I loove fennel. That cake sounds delicious.

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  6. Both turned out fantastic! Woody's Lemon cake was so good. I loved it.

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  7. Joan, I saw your comment on Marie's blog about Rose's factor. You can always start halving the recipes that doesn't require leavening - then you know it'll turn out fine. Just a thought :).

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  8. Both cakes look very luxurious. I'm glad it was a big hit. Great job as always, Joan!!

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  9. Thanks Jenn for the tip! And Hanaa for always being so supportive, and 'there.'

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  10. Really great job on your right or wrong cake. Your layers look nice and even. I was once again too busy to make it this week but lemon is my favorite flavor so I will try it soon.

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  11. Thanks from our most fabulous Sugar Chef, highest praise!

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