Lemon Cake with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

After originally tasting these cupcakes, I wrote the most bitter (yeah, pun probably intended) blog post ever. The flavor just was not what I was expecting at all and I was slightly heartbroken at the failed adventure as these cupcakes are a gift for a 65th birthday extravaganza. But, I took another taste later and the tart after-tart was not so mouth-puckeringly bitey and I received confirmation from my official taste tester, and boyfriend extraordinaire, that this was indeed how they were supposed to taste. What follows is a less emo post about my first adventure in lemon cake and lemon buttercream.

Soft, sweet, and very very tart

Analysis of the Cake
I spent a great deal of time reading through the recipes in my cookbook collection and weighing the pros and cons to each one before finally settling upon Cake Love's "Light and Lemony" recipe. What drew me to this recipe originally were the multiple lemon flavor sources (segmented, limoncello, lemon oil) and the sour elements to counter the sweet (cream cheese, heavy cream). Also, it was the only lemon cake recipe I had that stated it could be made into cupcakes as well as other cake forms. I've previously made a spectacular lemon cake that would not translate well into cupcakes (however see nays for the shocking results).
The Yays

• New technique learned! How to segment a lemon! I did pretty well for my first try too. Lesson learned though: wear gloves. My dry nurses hands felt like the fire of a thousand suns by the second lemon. According to the recipe, by using a segmented lemon the lemon juice flavor is still translated into the batter but since it's still contained in it's pulpy cocoon the batter doesn't get too watered down. Noted.
• New ingredient used! Turbinado sugar! Smells like happy! Supposedly makes a huge difference but honestly I'm not really sure it did in the end. In fact, the batter was almost a little too gritty-sugary tasting. 
• The cake has a wonderful texture, light, spongy, kind of melts on your tongue. Almost like cotton-candy cake.
• They baked quite lovely and had a wonderful golden top as seen in the photo above. I did have to extend the baking time by quite a bit however, but all is well that ends well.

The Nays

• I'm definitely not sold that this is the best lemon cake recipe in existence. I still feel that the tart aftermath is a drawback and a recipe with a more subtle tartness would be much more pleasant on the palate. The first cupcake I had was difficult to finish because it was so tart but the second more mellowed out sample I had still had the tartness but perhaps not in as strong of a form as the first (or so I hope).
• The cupcake paper does not want to let go of the damn things, which is something I've experienced with lemon cakes before. It was a disappointment because I thought that since this recipe specifically gave directions for cupcakes this problem would be avoided. Lies.

Overall Impression: Bleh, probably won't re-visit this one

Analysis of the Frosting
The good news is the frosting is simply to die for. With our base of Italian Meringue Buttercream, I added pure lemon oil as suggested by Rose's Heavenly Cakes. This too was a heavily deliberated choice and in the battle between limoncello, lemon oil, and something else (I honestly can't remember at this moment) the sage advice from my mother (who has spent years perfecting a lemon cheesecake) was to go with the lemon oil as it was the least artificial tasting. And that advice was spot on. Sweet with a hint of lemon it was the perfect, light, and refreshing taste you would expect from something of the lemon variety.  
Overall Impression: Ohmuhlord, this one's a keeper

It's hard to go from something as wonderful as my recent endeavor with red velvet cupcakes to something that missed the mark, but that's why I'm on this quest so that I can filter through everything and find the best of the best. Until next time, keep on keepin' on!

Yellow Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting: Round 1

As previously mentioned, the perfect frosting has already been discovered, so unless otherwise mentioned it's safe to assume that the base of the frosting will the the Italian Meringue Butter Cream from Cake Love with experimentations to the flavorings.

That being said, this most recent adventure involved yellow cake and dark chocolate frosting. Future posts will have better photo depictions, but since I didn't get the idea for the blog until after I had baked and given away these bad boys, this one picture will have to suffice!

Analysis of the Cake
The cake recipe was the "Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes" recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. Now, I already have kind of a beef with this cookbook (mainly that it touts 175 recipes for cupcakes when half of them are really just muffins and also that it appears to focus on the flashy instead of the quality) but the recipe seemed pretty simple and involved buttermilk, something I've found to be an indicator of a good cake recipe. But, overall I felt that the cake was rather bland and needed more of a robust "yellow cake" hurrah and was easily overpowered by the fantastic frosting.

The Yays

• Baked nicely, a little golden brown on the edges just like you'd want
• Held it's shape well when unwrapped, not too crumbly (there's nothing worse than either of those things)
• The unbaked batter was fantastic
• Good amount of sweetness

The Nays

• A little bit on the drier side. This recipe used cake flour and all-purpose flour which I'm highly skeptical of because some of the best cakes I've baked were from recipes that used all-purpose flour. I think somehow the gluten content of the conflicting flours was the culprit
• Underwhelming taste, could have had more oomph

Overall Impression: Meh
I just have a gut feeling a better recipe exists out there. It's not horrible, but it definitely does not qualify for "ohmuhlord" status

Analysis of the Frosting
For the frosting I took the chocolate additions from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes recipe for Dark Chocolate frosting and added them to the Italian Meringue base. Using a combination of cocoa powder in boiling water and melted semi-sweet chocolate chips the result was fantastical. The frosting retained all of the wonderful things about the Italian Meringue but had a nice rich dark chocolate finish.

Overall Impression: Ohmuhlord
This one is a definite winner and will be recorded in my personal cookbook I am building.

In summary, there still exists a quest for a better yellow cake and my suspicions of Martha Stewart's focus on the flash rather than a good tasting product were partially confirmed.