samantha's "happy" cake
categories:  Cake | Desserts   

Prepared: 2007-03-02

Made the cake for Samantha's 2nd birthday by adapting a recipe for a triple-layer lemon cake and decorating it with a sunflower and some birds. The birds were a cardinal and blue jay, two of Sam's favourite birds currently. Since this cake was presented to Sam with the singing of "Happy Birthday", Sam dubbed this cake the "Happy Cake".

Ingredients:

• Batter (note this is for three layers but I only used 2. I used the remaining dough for cupcakes)
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 4 eggs
• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 cup buttermilk*

Preparation:

• Allow butter and eggs to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, grease and lightly flour three 9x1 1/2 inch round cake pans**.
• In a medium bowl stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds.
• Add sugar, lemon peel, and lemon juice; beat until well combined.
• Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk to butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.
• Pour into prepared pans.
• Bake in a 350F oven for 25-30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near centers comes out clean.
• Cool cake layers in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes.
• Remove cake layers from pans. Cool thoroughly on racks.
  
  Filling:
• I used a package of vanilla pudding to fill between the two layers of the cake.
• Not all of it was used for the cake but somehow it all disappeared. ;-)
  
  Frosting and Decorations:
• In a medium mixing bowl combine 1 package of Philadelphia cream cheese, softened; 1/2 cup butter, softened; and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.
• Beat with electric mixer on low to medium speed until light and fluffy.
• Gradually add 2 cups sifted icing sugar, beating well.
• Add more sifted icing sugar until frosting reaches spreading consistency.
• Take 2/3 of the icing and stir in the lemon peel. Spread all over the cake, especially the sides.
• Take remaining 1/3 of the icing and add more icing sugar to make it thicker for piping.
• Take half of the icing and colour it brown with a bit of cocoa powder (I actually ended up using some bought chocolate icing that I had leftover in the fridge instead).
• Spread it in a circle on top of the cake to make the center of the flower.
• Take the rest of the icing and colour it yellow to pipe around the edge as the flower petals.
• For the birds I used marzipan which I coloured with food colouring and then rolled out between sheets of wax paper.
• I then cut out the bird shapes freehand to place on the cake and made some finishing outlines with black storebought icing.

*substitution: use 1 tbsp lemon juice in a glass measuring cup. Add enought milk to make 1 cup total liquid; stir. Let mixture stand for 5 minutes before using.

**since I only made a two layer cake, I used the batter for the third layer to make muffins instead but I should have greased the pans much better as the muffins ended up sticking quite a bit. Even for the cakes, it was important to grease the pans well.

Note: Cake can be covered and stored for up to 3 days but it never lasted that long for us!