Hello all!  I haven’t been posting much lately…not much time to bake…and baking the same things over and over (I like what I like!).  Anyway, I haven’t baked anything for the hospital clinic in quite a long time.  One of the managers has been pestering me to bring in a cake.  The world has no idea what we do to produce one of these cakes!  After working a full day (on my feet), cooking dinner (on my feet) , and doing dishes (on my feet) it isn’t so easy to break out the cake pans and sign up for 4 or 5 hours of baking, decorating and cleaning (on my feet).  All of his whining at me to produce a cake makes me want to do it even less!  Anyway…I finally decided it was time (I finally got him to stop asking!  LOL) 

This is a white chocolate whisper cake.  I added some lemon zest to the sugar (Processed in the food processor).  I split each layer and filled each layer with lemon curd.  Then sandwiched the split layers with lemon mousseline and frosted the outside of the cake with lemon mousseline as well.  It perfumed the whole room with lemon!  It went over big. Some one asked me if “there are real lemons in here…or is it some sort of artificial lemon flavor?”  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Artificial lemon flavor?!  after I was scraped up off the floor, I calmly explained how one zested a lemon, juiced a lemon, strained the juice, processed the zest with the sugar…etc.  He said:  You have to go through all that?  HA!  That’s just the tip of the ice burg.  See…they have no idea!

Having a problem attaching the pic.  Will add it later.

Here’s the pic…

Bill, that is so beautiful!  I love the lines that go around it!  Oh, and all that lemon curd and lemon mousseline and lemon in the cake—lemony goodness to be sure!!!

Bill, you are going to have to enter the world of the freezer.  Make frosting one weekend, shove it in the freezer.  Make cakes another weekend, thaw the frosting, frost it, shove the whole cake in the freezer.  Or make the cakes and shove them in the freezer, and then, when you want to compose it, take out the cakes and frosting, thaw and put it together.  Everything stays perfect and delicious.  However, I confess to having developed a quirk that if a cake hasn’t been frozen, I usually don’t like it as much.

Bill, that is one glorious cake!  Wish I had been there for it

I love the story about your manager bugging you (is there anyone who doesn’t resent nagging?), and about people not realizing what goes into a project like that!  In a similar vein, I get people from time to time who think I can whip something up on the spur of the moment… and with my schedule, the only way I can bake is in small increments, so that it takes me a week to complete most projects.  I’m trying to train my daughter to think of the need for me to plan ahead, as she keeps volunteering my baking on short notice. 

Not sure if Bill’s NYC apartment has a large freezer…  Mine certainly didn’t when I lived there!

I do occasionally work in stages, freezing as I go.  My freezer is reasonable for NYC but it isn’t nearly as big as the freezer one might have in a house. I often freeze frostings. I rarely freeze cakes (I have on occasion).  I have a container of strawberry mousseline buttercream in my freezer right now…next time I make cupcakes, I’ll defrost it and use it! 

Thanks so much for your compliments!

Bill, I can almost smell the lemon coming from my computer screen.  That is one beautiful cake.  You have really mastered the art of combing the buttercream on the sides of the cake.  I have tried it a few times and I end up with such a mess! lol! 

You’re so right.  Most people do not realize what is involved when everything is made from scratch.

Bill, That is simply gorgeous. Lemon is one of my household faves and I have even been eating Meyer curd on my toast the last few weeks. It’s amazing the questions people will ask or comments they will make about food when they will eat most ANYTHING that is put out as free samples in a store(like Costco). So much so, sometimes I’m not sure they would know something good if it jumped into their mouth. Your posting confirms my suspicions!

THanks guys!  Liza:  I find that an icing comb is the easiest way to get smooth even sides.  Not sure if this will be helpful, but this is what I do:
Do everything on a turn table
Crumb coat the cake
Hold a spatula along the side of the cake and turn the turntable to get the crumb coat smooth.
Next I use an icing bag and a # 18 star tip and I put icing on the sides of the cake going up and down, then the top of the cake going tin concentric circles
Next I take the spatula and hold it agains the side and turn the table to smooth the sides slightly
Next I hold the icing comb against the side, resting it on the turn table and give it a turn.

Not sure if this is helpful…but after a couple of tries I found this to be fool proof.

Bill, you’re cake looks lovely!!! It so happened that today my hubby requested for a lemon cake and your post inspired me to try to make one….I hope you don’t mind me asking for your recipe???
Our home is filled with chocoholics but lately I’ve tried making lemon bars (followed a recipe from “bakerella”‘s website) and it’s a huge hit!
Thank You!
Happy Baking!!!!
Dani

Gorgeous work, as always!  The people at the clinic may not know what goes into making that cake, but they know one thing:  your cakes taste great!!  So that’s why they keep nagging.  If I worked with you, I might nag too!  : )

Hi Dani:

I can see by the number of posts that you are new to the blog and forum.  Hi!  and Welcome to our community of Bakers.  This website is maintained by Rose Levy Beranbaum who has written some of the best books on baking…no ... let me take that back…who has written THE best books on baking that I have ever seen.  She generously gives us her time and help and is a wonderful, charming, talented and warm person. 

Most of the discussions on this site are about her recipes from her wonderful books

She and her publishers have asked that we not post the recipes from her books because of copyright laws.

The recipes used for this lemon cake are all in The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. 

The cake layers are the White Chocolate Whisper cake.  I added two teaspoons of lemon zest to the sugar and processed it in the food processor before I began the recipe.  I made a double recipe of the lemon curd. (Make the lemon curd first…it has to cool for quite a long time).  I split the cake layers, and filled each layer with the lemon curd.  The Frosting is Mousseline Butter cream (Lemon mousseline butter cream…there is lemon curd beaten into the butter cream…the amount is at the end of the recipe for mousseline butter cream…don’t have my book handy). I added a couple of drops of yellow food color to the frosting…just to give it a more “lemony” look. 

The book is amazing and readily available.  If you can’t buy it at the moment, there is probably a copy in your library that you could borrow.  I hope this was helpful…and I’m sorry that I can’t post the recipes.  I’m sure you understand.

Hi Bill,
THANK YOU so much for your kind and detailed reply! I totally understand the reason for you being unable to post the recipe….and appreciate you explaining it to me!
I am a HUGE fan of Rose Levy Beranbaum and have her books as well….The Cake Bible and Heavenly Cakes. I only really started baking about 4 years ago (just to bake my children’s B’Day cakes) but now it has become a passion/bordderline obsession…..The cake bible was given to me by my mother and I attempted to bake a chocolate cake from there and failed miserable due to my lack of baking skills! (this was about 4 years ago) and have been scared to try anything since then…..don’t feel like I’m good enough to try my hand at those lovely masterpieces created by Rose. Anyway, I bought a copy of heavenly cakes about a year ago and have tried quite a few cakes from there and so far have managed to be successfull! YAY!!! I’m still very nervous to try making a genoise!!!!
I just realized that this is a pretty long reply…sorry….my husbands B’Day is coming up and I will try going back to the cake bible and attempt to make this lemony masterpiece which you have created!! Thank You so much for all your advice and the warm welcome to the forum. I look forward to seeing more posts of yummy cakes from you!

Dani:

Sorry I was so slow to reply!  Welcome!  And as Rose says: “Blissful Baking!”