#ginaswedding

The final cake was 3 x 6″ pans, 3 x 8″ pans, and 3 x 10″ pans. I did some math, and made three times the recipe shown below. I did the 8″ pans with the first batch, the 6″ pans + a 10″ pan with the second batch, and two 10″ pans with the third batch. 

To make things efficient, I greased and lined the pans at the start. I also measured out my butter + sugar + lemon zest into three bowls at the start. 

LEMON CAKE (adapted from Layered )

650 g cake flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1.5 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

340 g unsalted butter (room temp)

600 g granulated sugar

20 g lemon zest

1.5 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

6 egg yolks

1 tsp. lemon extract

2 tbsp. lemon juice

485 g buttermilk

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line and grease the cake pans. 

In a stand mixer (with paddle attachment) mix the butter, sugar, and zest until smooth and fluffy. It should go to a white-ish colour. 

While butter is mixing, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in another bowl. 

Add the vanilla to the butter mixture. Add in the eggs one at a time. Add the lemon extract and lemon juice. 

At low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture, starting and ending with the flour mixture. 

Using a scale, evenly divide batter between the cake pans. 

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean (>20 minutes)

Let the cakes cook for 20 minutes and then invert onto cooling racks. 

Notes: 

I did my calculations to simplify things, but they are a little off. Basically, I considered the 3 x 6″ pans to be a single batch, the 3 x 8″ pans to be a double batch, and the 3 x 10″ pans to be a triple batch. Technically, if the 3 x 6″ pans are a single batch, the 3 x 8″ pans are a 1.8x batch, and the 3 x 10″ pans are a 2.8x batch. I decided this was close enough, and just cut more off the tops. 

To make things efficient I just got batter prepared while the previous cakes were baking. 

I used a lot of lemon since the first cake I made barely had any lemon flavour. 

Each cake (after torting) ends up at about 5.5″ (14 cm) tall

I left the butter out overnight which got it to the perfect temperature (in Vancouver summer) 

I made 2.5 batches of buttercream to ice the cake. I didn’t actually need as much since I used jam inside the cake. I tried to make raspberry icing, but I couldn’t not get the flavour across. Gina didn’t want seeds in the icing, but it seems like the straining process strained away the flavour as well. I decided to bypass adding any raspberry to the icing and to just let the jam impart the flavour. 

SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM (adapted from Layered )

240 g egg whites

400 g granulated sugar

675 unsalted butter

1 tbsp. vanilla

DIRECTIONS

Put the egg whites and sugar in a stand mixer bowl and whisk together immediately. 

Put the bowl over a bain marie (making sure it doesn’t touch the water)

Whisk the mixture until it reaches 72 C. 

Remove the bowl and place it into the stand mixer. Mix with the whisk attachment on high speed until the bowl is room temperature (8 - 10 mins).

Switch to the paddle attachment and add in butter a few spoons at a time (at low speed). Add in vanilla once butter is added.

Increase to medium speed and beat until the buttercream is silky looking. 

Notes:

Again, the butter being left out overnight allowed for the perfect consistency. 

If something looks wrong, it can probably be fixed. There are a ton of resources on troubleshooting SMBC woes. 

If you have to mix this out of the fridge, it may change colour. The icing I brought with me to the wedding changed colour and I couldn’t use it on the cake. 

ASSEMBLY

Once the cakes have all cooled, torte them. I used my cake leveler to do this. I suggest doing this after you’re done all of the cakes so that they can be cut to identical sizes. 

After torting, I used a pastry brush to apply a simple syrup. I just did a a 1:1 sugar:water mixture with some cut up lemons. 

Once the cake layers were prepared, I got each tier ready. I used my first batch of icing to create domes and filled the insides with jam. I also did a very thin crumb coat, and refrigerated the tiers overnight. I built each tier on its respective cake board. 

The next day, I prepared a second and third batch of icing. I tried to get the first day’s icing close to the colour I wanted, but I wasn’t super concerned since it would all be covered. 

I coloured the icing appropriately and iced each tier. Once iced, I stuck them back in the fridge. 

I picked up some food grade dowels to place in the bottom two tiers. I used a hacksaw and mitre box to cut them to size (although I was really considering buying a bandsaw). I am pretty sure I gratuitously doweled, but better to be overdoweled than underdoweled! 

I used some non slip mats to put the cake tiers in cardboard boxes for transportation, and then prayed that they didn’t move in the car. 

Once at the venue, I stacked the tiers! My icing changed colour so I just used flowers and greenery to hide things that weren’t perfect.