layer – Michael's Test Kitchen

This layered lemon cake is comprised of three layers: Icing, Lemon Curd, then Icing, on three slices of cake.

INGREDIENTS:

(Makes one medium size cake, 16 medium slices)

CAKE:

3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 tsp. lemon zest
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup lemon juice

ICING:

1 tablespoon of butter, melted
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice

FILLING:

Lemon curd

You can make your own lemon curd, or buy it from the store.

DIRECTIONS:

Grease two cake pans, and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut the zest off a 1 lemon. Put it, and the sugar into a food processor, and blend for one minute, until all the zest is finely blended up. Transfer mixture to kitchen aid, or a plain ole stand mixer, and cream in butter. Add eggs one at a time, and then add vanilla.

In a separate medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix into wet ingredients until combined.

Pour batter into the two prepared cake pans, making sure one is thicker (the one you’ll cut lengthwise in half) than the other. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until cake springs back up to touch.

To make icing, whip melted butter, powdered sugar, milk and 1 Tbs. of lemon juice in a smallish bowl. Set to the side.

When they are done baking a cooled off, place the thinner cake section upside down on serving platter. Take the thicker one, and cut lengthwise in half. You’ll have two perfect thin section of cake for an extra layer.

On top of the first section that you placed on the serving platter, spread on half of the icing evenly.

Place one section of the thicker halves on top of this iced layer. Then spread on the lemon curd thickly. Place on the last layer of cake. On this one, spread the final layer of icing. Now you’re ready to serve it. If you prefer, you can always refrigerate a few hours before serving, and it might hold up a little better…

See my original post of this recipe on instructables

lemon-cake-main-2

This Apple Blueberry Layer pie I made for a PI Day contest a while ago, so I engraved the Pi symbol engraved on the top of the crust. The Blueberries are layered on-top of the apples so as to show through the symbol Pi because of its great contrast to the Pie crust.

But apart from PI day, this is an very delicious twist on your everyday Apple Pie.

See recipe below:

Ingredients: (makes one largish regular pie)

2 frozen pie crusts (or homemade)

2 cups of frozen blueberries

3 Granny Smith Apples

3 McIntosh Apples

2 teaspoons cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon nutmeg

½ cup sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup flour

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Sugar for garnish

1 egg white

NOTE:

It would be best to have a deep-dish pie pan for this recipe.

DIRECTIONS:

Place a room-temperature unbaked pie crust onto a pie pan, as shown. Leave the second pie crust on the counter to reach room temperature while you prepare the pie.

Combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Peel, core, and slice the apples, or use a very handy machine to do it for you. Toss the ‘peeledcoredsliced’ apples and lemon juice in a large bowl. Cut large pieces with a knife until all pieces are evenly sized.

Throw the flour-spice-sugar mixture over the apples, and toss to coat the apples completely.

Throw the apple mixture into the pie crust-filled pan.

Prepare the two cups of frozen blueberries by placing them in a colander and rinse thoroughly. Pat dry with paper towels. Even if you have fresh blueberries, you could also do this to wash them.

Evenly layer these blueberries over the top of the apples.

Now you may preheat the oven to 425 degrees. (Fahrenheit)

Place the other room temperature pie crust over the top neatly, and, using a fork, press across the circumference of the pie pan, pressing the top pie crust into the bottom crust.

Optional: Using a stencil, or your own brain, carefully cut the Pi symbol (rather largely) out of the top pi crust. You can use the cut-out crust as extra decoration on the top of the pie crust if you want to.

Beat an egg white until a bit fluffy. Spread this lightly over the top of the finished pie crust. Sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

Place pie in preheated oven (425) and bake for around 40 minutes, or until crust is golden, and fruit mixture is boiling.

Remove from oven, take a nice picture, and serve. Or, as I prefer, cool in fridge completely before serving.

NOTE:

Having the pie crust defrosted completely to room temperature is important. If it is not at room temperature, it is going to be alot harder to place in the pie pan, because it will crack all over the place.

Usually with recipes, you’ll see instructions at the very beginning to preheat your oven. But with a long recipe, like this, I find it is about half an hour or so to prep, so your oven will just be wasting energy. Because of this, you’ll only need to preheat your oven in this recipe 10 – 15 minutes before you’re ready to bake. It preheats at 425 degrees. See directions.