Lemon Curd Layer Cake

I went a little crazy this past week with all kinds of baking projects, but it was such fun. My husband was traveling and I used nap times and evening to try out some new things. I was originally intending for this cake to be my birthday cake. However, I really wanted to try using fondant and fondant just didn't sound good on a lemon cake with lemon curd, so I made this cake in addition and we enjoyed it the day after my birthday when we visited family at the lake.

I wanted to make lemon curd anyway and found this recipe for a lemon cake with lemon curd layers and a lemon swiss meringue buttercream frosting in the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. It sounds like lemon overload, but it was a great combination. I don't have very many nice photos of this, unfortunately, as I forgot my nice camera and we were away from home. But, it was a lovely cake and I wanted to record making this.

The cake itself was a very nice texture and it wasn't too lemony at all. The cake was moistened by including creme fraiche that was mixed with the lemon zest and lemon juice.

It was meant to be a four layer cake, but I was short on time, so I chose not to cut the layers and just did two layers. However, I think it would be worth it to trim the layers the next time I would make this as the additional lemon curd layers would make the cake even more moist and flavorful.

The swiss meringue buttercream was nice and smooth, but didn't seem to refrigerate and keep that well for the next day. I did beat it to soften it for frosting the cake, but it didn't seem to come together as nicely as a traditional buttercream. I had some extra lemon curd and used it to roughly pipe on the outside of the cake.