Patriotic Lemon Raspberry Cake

I while ago I stumbled across this little bit of awesomeness.  You know, one of those cakes where every slice looks like an American flag. Unfortunately, I stumbled across this after the 4th...but decided Labor Day was as good of a day as any.  Although visually this cake is fantastic, I wanted the taste to be phenomenal as well.  Instead of a plain ol' vanilla cake, I opted for lemon as the color would still be light enough for the white layers and wouldn't mess with the coloring of the blue and reds as well.  I wanted some sort of curd for the filling, but thought the yellow of the lemon would clash with the colors of the flag, so I decided to go with raspberry instead, hoping the color would meld well enough with the red of the adjoining layer that we would be ok.  I was super excited about how the cake was coming together and thought it looked nice after it was frosted and garnished with fresh raspberries.  Unfortunately, due to an absolutely stupid mistake on my part, it didn't survive the car ride.  Good thing I opted for a divinely tasting cake recipe.  People essentially had to scoop out the cake, but considering the plethora of other (much more attractive by this point) desserts available, a surprising amount of the cake was consumed.  Oh man, it looked so sad!  We had to piece it together to get one pathetic picture of what (if you squint) kind of looks like a flag. But I'd definitely make it again! Just without putting it on a cake circle that was supposed to help make serving it easier...which I then forgot to attach with frosting  to the bottom of the cake caddy.  Oh inertia, how I loathe thee at times...



Luckily I made this again and was able to get a better picture :)

You can obviously make this without making it patriotic, but I'll post what I did.


Note: I thought it would be cool to put white sprinkles in the blue cake layer to look like stars--sort of a funfetti effect, but Vanilla Bean was closed by the time I started this and JoAnns, Target, Walmart, and various grocery stores were of no help in finding white jimmies (or even white stars).  The best I could find were some sugar pearls, but they ended up making the layer a little too gooey from the added sugar and (worst of all) you could really taste the cornstarch so I had to start over.  Next time I make this I'll make sure to stop at Vanilla Bean beforehand and try it again with better ingredients.


Patriotic Lemon Raspberry Cake

First make your lemon and raspberry curds.  I made these the night before to make sure they were completely set, but you can also make them the day of.


Raspberry Curd:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• Two 1/2-pints ripe raspberries or one 12-ounce package frozen raspberries, thawed
• 5 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 to 3 tsp fresh lemon juice

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the raspberries, egg yolks, sugar, and salt and cook, mashing the berries and stirring frequently until thickened, about 10 minutes.

Pour the mixture through a coarse strainer set over a bowl, pressing hard on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Cool to room temperature; the curd will continue to thicken as it cools. Stir in lemon juice to taste. Refrigerate, covere, until ready to serve, or for up to 1 month.

Lemon Curd: (You can use store-bought, but it's really quite easy to make and soo tasty!)

• 1/3cup lemon juice , from 2 lemons
• 2large eggs
• 1egg yolk
• 1/2cup sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
• 2tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 1/2-inch cubes and chilled
• 1tablespoon heavy cream
• 1/4teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch salt

1. 1. Heat lemon juice in small nonreactive saucepan over medium heat until hot but not boiling. Whisk eggs and yolk in medium nonreactive bowl; gradually whisk in sugar. Whisking constantly, slowly pour hot lemon juice into eggs, then return mixture to saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with wooden spoon, until mixture registers 170 degrees on instant-read thermometer and is thick enough to cling to spoon, about 3 minutes.
2. 2. Immediately remove pan from heat and stir in cold butter until incorporated; stir in cream, vanilla, and salt, then pour curd through fine-mesh strainer into small nonreactive bowl. Cover surface of curd directly with plastic wrap; refrigerate until needed.

Next make your lemon cake.
You'll have to make two batches of this as you'll need to end up with one white, one blue, and two red layers.  I made the first batch red, and then split the second batch in half, leaving one half white and dying the second half blue.

• 2 1/4cups cake flour (9 ounces), plus extra for pans
• 1cup whole milk , room temperature
• 6large egg whites , room temperature
• 2teaspoons lemon extract
• 1 3/4cups granulated sugar (12 1/4 ounces)
• 4teaspoons baking powder
•  3  tablespoons lemon zest
• 1teaspoon salt
• 12tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), cut into 12 pieces, softened but still cool

1. 1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch-wide by 2-inch-high round cake pans and line with parchment paper. In 2-cup liquid measure or medium bowl, whisk together milk, egg whites, and lemon extract.
2. 2. In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest, and salt at low speed. With mixer running at low speed, add butter one piece at a time; continue beating until mixture resembles moist crumbs with no visible butter chunks. Add all but 1/2 cup milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed until mixture is pale and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes. With mixer running at low speed, add remaining 1/2 cup milk mixture; increase speed to medium and beat 30 seconds more. Stop mixer and scrape sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium speed and beat 20 seconds longer. Color as needed, then divide batter evenly between cake pans; using rubber spatula, spread batter to pan walls and smooth tops.
3. 4. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cakes comes out clean, 23 to 25 minutes. Loosen cakes from sides of pans with small knife, cool in pan 10 minutes, then invert onto greased wire rack; peel off parchment. Invert cakes again; cool completely on rack, about 1 1/2 hours.

Now for the frosting:


Note: I think next time I will make 1.5 times the recipe for frosting.  I didn't have enough to do a proper crumb coat and had to skimp on the amount I put on the sides a little.  I also didn't have enough to finish decorating. If you're not planning on decoration/doing a crumb coat, this will be just enough.  If you want to be on the safe side, I'd make extra.

• 3 large egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into tablespoons
• 3/4 cup lemon curd

Set a heatproof bowl of an electric mixer over a saucepan of simmering water. Combine the egg whites and sugar in the bowl. Cook, whisking constantly, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch.

Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on high speed until stiff peaks form. Continue beating until the mixture is fluffy and cooled.

Switch to the paddle attachment. With the mixer on medium-low speed, gradually add the butter, beating well after each addition. If the frosting appears to separate after all the butter has been added, beat on medium-high speed until smooth again. Beat in lemon curd. Beat on lowest speed to eliminate any air bubbles, about 2 minutes. Stir with a rubber spatula until frosting is smooth.

Place in the fridge and allow to cool slightly before icing the cake.

Assembly:
To recap, you should have two layers of red cake, one of blue, and one of white.  You should also have a quantity of raspberry curd as well as your lemon curd frosting. Before you start, level the cakes as needed so they will play nice when you need to layer them.


1. Cut each of the red cake in half horizontally.  (I prefer the floss method.)  This will give you 4 layers of red cake. You only need three, so do what you want with the 4th layer as well as the other scraps you will accumulate.  I used them to made a trifle with my remaining lemon curd and raspberries.
2. In one of the red layers, cut out a 4-inch circle.  Set aside the scraps from the extra doughnut shape around this circle.
3. Cut the white cake in half horizontally.
4. In one of the white layers, cut out a 4-inch circle.  Set aside the scraps from the extra doughnut shape around this circle.
5. Do NOT split your blue layer in half, but bore out a four inch circle in the middle. This time you'll need to keep the outside ring, but won't need the inside circle.
6. Ok, so now you have 2 8 inch layers of red, 1 8 inch layer of white, 1 4 inch layer of red, 1 4 inch layer of white, and one 8-inch doughnut of blue cake.  Start with a red layer, pipe frosting around the edge of the top to fence in the raspberry curd and fill with a little more 1/4 (but not quite 1/3) of the raspberry curd.
7. Top with a while layer, repeat.  (If you are worried about the curd discoloring your white layer, you can apply a thin layer of frosting to the white layers first.)
8. Top with red layer, repeat.
9. Top with blue cake.
10 Fit the 4-inch white layer in the middle of the blue layer. Top with remaining raspberry curd.
11. Fit the 4-inch red layer in the middle of the blue layer.  
12. Frost top and sides of cake.  Decorate as desired. I swirled frosting along the top edge and garnished with fresh raspberries. I would have liked to make some swirls on the bottom, but I ran out of frosting.



Credits:
Flag Cake Idea: I've seen many variations, but like this one best: Glorious Treats She does a fantastic job at explaining the assembly process.
Lemon Cake: adapted from Cooks Illustrated
Lemon Curd: Cooks Illustrated
Raspberry Curd: The Way to His Heart
Lemon Frosting: Martha Stewart