Snow white, lemon scented cake with summer fruit preserves, buttercream spiked with lemon juice, all sprinkled in coconut. What a beauty! (Thank you again, Dorie Greenspan!) This cake was super fun to make and I was able to light it up in person with the birthday girl. Happy Birthday, Mom!
Perfect Party Cake from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours, p. 250
This book is worth its price for this recipe alone. The cake is not fussy to make and is absolutely beautiful in texture and taste. The buttercream recipe is also the easiest method I’ve tried — egg whites and regular granulated sugar heated so the sugar dissolves then whisked up into a meringue — no boiling the sugar to “soft-ball stage” and other technicalities. What a relief! Dorie teaches us that classic technique can be fluid and easy.
I baked my layers in 6 inch pans, trying to go for that small, but tall Miette look. My 2 layers baked for 45 minutes then I cooled and split them each in half. I stacked all four when filling and assembling the cake and learned why Miette uses 3 layers…very difficult to cut and serve when the cake is a sky-high 4 layers. But we managed. 🙂
