Spring Birthday Cake

Yesterday, we celebrated my freshman year roommate's birthday, and of course, I couldn't resist taking over the dessert planning.

Although I'm not much of a cake person, I decided that for this birthday, I would go with the traditional birthday cake of two layers, and since I have yet to use my Baking with Julia much (horrible, I know!), I decided to try Julia's perfect genoise, a basic French cake. French cakes are drier than American but still oh so delicious.

Now, that Spring has arrived in Minnesota, I've been craving fruit, so I made lemon curd to hold the two layers together, though I used buttercream frosting for the rest of the cake. Still, I wanted more lemon, so I drizzled more lemon curd on top of the cake. Then, to decorate and take full advantage of Spring, I decorated with fresh violets. They may not add much flavor, but they are beautiful!



Genoise from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan
This only makes enough for one round, so I doubled the recipe for my cake.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs (room temp)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pour the melted butter into a small bowl; reserve.

In another bowl, mix the flour, 1 Tb of the sugar, and the salt.

Then, in a large bowl, beat the eggs and the remaining sugar. Then, with a hand-mixer, whip the mixture on medium speed until it is airy, pale, and tripled in volume like softly whipped cream. The took me about 7 minutes. The eggs are properly whipped when you lift the mixer and the mixture falls bak into the bowl in a ribbon that rests on the surface for about 10 seconds. Whip the vanilla extract into the mixture near the end.

Fold in about one third of the flour mixture. Be sure to stop as soon as the flour is incorporated. Fold in the rest in two more additions.

Then, spoon about 1 cup of the batter into the bowl with the melted butter and fold the butter in with a rubber spatula. Fold this mixture into the batter in the large bowl. (This is the point at which the batter is at its most fragile, so fold gingerly).

Pour into a prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Let it cool for about 5 minutes before removing from the pan.