We celebrated my mom’s birthday was this weekend, so of course I had to make her a special birthday cake. I decided to use my favorite vanilla cake recipe, and to pair it with a couple of my favorite fruit flavors, strawberry and lemon. Yum!

I topped the cake with a lemon cream icing recipe I came up with on the fly, and added in some strawberry preserve between the layers for extra yumminess. The cake was a hit at my mom’s birthday party, so I thought I’d share the recipe.

Vanilla Birthday Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup butter (room temperature)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350`F.

2. In a small mixing bowl combine the flour and baking powder and set it aside.

3. Beat together the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating as you go.

4. Add the vanilla to the butter sugar mixture, then slowly add the milk mixing as you go.

5. Once you’ve incorporated all the moist ingredients, slowly add the flour mixture, until all the flour is incorporated.

6. Pour into two 8-9″ round cake pans sprayed with cooking spray with flour, and bake at 350`F for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the center of the cake comes out clean, and the cake is starting to pull back from the edges of the pan.

7. While the cakes are still warm carefully dump them out onto a wire cooking rack to cool.

8. Once the cakes have cooled, level off the top with a serrated knife, and put the cut side down on a covered 10 inch cake round, or cake plate.
9. Spread the top of this cake with lemon cream icing (recipe below), then use a pastry bag to pipe more icing around the outside edges of the cake, and spread 3-4 tablespoons of strawberry preserves inside the piped circle (see photo).

10. Top with the second cake.

Decorate the cake however you want. I’ll be back to share how I decorated my mom’s birthday cake with the basket weave in another post.

Lemon Cream Icing

• 8 cups powdered sugar
• 1 stick of butter
• 6 tablespoons of lemonade concentrate
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2-3 tablespoons of water

1. Cream together the butter and lemonade concentrate, add the vanilla and lemon extract as you mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar until it’s fully incorporated.

2. Add the water slowly until the icing is the desired consistency. You want the icing stiff enough to hold soft peaks when you are mixing, but not so stiff it all sticks to the mixer beaters.

3. Ice the cake with your favorite decorator tips, or with a decorator knife. Like I said, I’ll be back to share how I decorated my mom’s birthday cake.

Enjoy!