When my best friend called me a few days ago and told me she wanted to have a last minute birthday dinner celebration, I immediately volunteered to make her birthday cake. She has been my taste tester for everything I've baked for years now, and she is always raving about the sweet treats I make her.
She loves lemon desserts more than anything so we decided on a raspberry lemon cake. I'd never made one before, but really went into this with blind faith that it would turn out well. And boy did it!
I got rave reviews all night for how delicious this cake was and I have to say, it is one of the most delicious cakes I've ever made.
The original recipe was from one of my favorite blogs, Butternut Bakery. But, to her own admission, this cake has a "light" lemon flavor, which I knew wouldn't fly with my friend who loves a punchy, tart lemon kick in her desserts. So I modified the recipe a bit by adding extra lemon juice and extra grated lemon wherever possible.
Because I didn't know how it was going to turn out, I didn't take the most aesthetic pictures in the world, I was way too focused on making sure it tasted good.
You can find the original recipe here.
Here are some things I did differently:
I added the juice of approx. 3 lemons into the lemon pastry cream. It just wasn't lemon-y enough for me, so I kept adding lemon juice until it was. I was worried that this would significantly altar the consistency, but it didn't! In fact, it made the cake even more flavorful.
I added fresh lemon juice and extra grated lemon into the cake batter itself. I was worried that this would make the cake dense, but it came out incredibly moist!
I added more powdered sugar into the cream cheese frosting to make the icing a bit thicker. I think it would've been fine regardless, but I found my frosting to be a bit runny, so I kept adding powdered sugar until it was the correct consistency.
I decorated the cake with raspberries that I stuffed with extra lemon cream, sliced lemon and sprigs of mint! I love the natural look and I think it came out so wonderfully.
I've already had requests to make this cake again for Easter, so if you make it, it is sure to be a hit!
Enjoy!
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