My 25th birthday is a big occasion, and its even ironic because I'm turning 25 on the 25th. This year, my birthday falls on thanksgiving day, which gives me permission to celebrate all week. My cousins and I are all big GLEE fans, so we decided to spend the week of thanksgiving watching season 1 of GLEE, which I have on dvd and have watched it 3 times. I've gotten my father hooked on GLEE also. Its pretty glorious.
So in addition to watching GLEE, singing along, wearing converses, and quoting non-stop, I decided to make my own birthday cake. A GLEE CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For those of you who watch GLEE, you'll appreciate my choices of colors and decorations for my birthday cake.
Lemon cake recipe:
- 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 4 cups granulated sugar, divided
- 8 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup grated lemon zest (6 to 8 large lemons)
- 6 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 3 10 by 2 cake pans. You may also line the bottom with parchment paper, if desired.
2. Cream the butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes and looks like slightly yellow snow.
3. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, and the lemon zest.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, combine 1/4 cup lemon juice, the buttermilk, and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the pans, about 3 cups of batter in each pan, smooth the tops, and bake for 30-40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
When they come out, they should look like this:
Turn them upside down on a cooling rack for 15-20 minutes, then remove the cake pans. Let the cakes cool completely. While the cakes are cooling, you can make the icing.
Buttercream Icing:
- 2 cups solid vegetable shortening
- 2 cups softened, unsalted butter
- 16 cups (4 lbs.) confectioners' sugar
- 4 tablespoons meringue powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons clear almond extract
- 12-16 ounces whipping cream (1 1/2 - 2 cups)
1. Cream shortening and butter until fluffy.
2. Add sugar and meringue powder and continue creaming until well-blended.
3. Add salt, flavoring and whipping cream; blend on low speed until moistened.
4. Beat at high speed until icing is fluffy. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Now that we have cooled cakes and icing made, we can go ahead and assemble. I didn't take pictures of all the steps after this, but you get the idea.
On a platter that's big enough and strong enough, put the first layer of cake in the center and crumb coat the top with a little bit of the icing. Pipe a big ring of icing around the edge to keep the filling inside. Spread some strawberry preserves/jam on the cake. Crumb coat the underside of the next layer, and place on top. Repeat between the 2nd and 3rd layers. Be careful not to over-fill the layers with strawberry jam, or it will all smush out. Let the cake sit in the fridge for a while to let it all set. Crumb coat the entire cake and let sit in the fridge for at least a couple hours to chill all the way through.
While the cake is chilling out, make some cake balls, courtesy of the Bakerella website. Use the extra cake batter to make the cake needed to make cake balls and some of your buttercream icing to mix in. I got yellow and red candy melts from Hobby Lobby, and used little colored star sprinkles to make them a little more GLEE-ful. I also rolled out some pre-colored fondant and cut out some stars for the side of my cake. Check out the results:
Use colored icing to pipe on decorations and borders, and the GLEE logo, which I printed out from the internet. Alternate colors of cake balls around the base of the cake and use a little dab if icing to stick the fondant stars on the sides. Keep the cake in the refrigerator overnight until the next day, after you've watched most of the first season of GLEE. Get a gallon of milk, plates, forks, and about 65 people to eat your ginormous GLEE cake!!! And make sure to get some GLEE poses with the cake before cutting into it.
