Cake Madness - Day 29

Cake of the Day: Lemon Poppy Seed with Raspberry Curd Filling "Present" Cake

Well, it's finally here, my final cake. Since I had exhausted most of my cake ideas (I've made so many different kinds), when I found this recipe: Lemon Poppy Seed Cakes, it was unique enough to be a possibility. I didn't settle on the cake idea right away however, thinking that something better would come along (as I'm not that big of a fan of lemon poppy seed), but nothing did, and I was rather intrigued by this one, so I decided to try it. I had also found this decorating idea: Pretty Present Cake and I thought it was very fitting to use as a "thank you" present for all of the people who sponsored my cakes or left feedback about them.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart was out of Fruit by the Foot, so I bought the organic, real fruit version. I was happy that was going to be healthier than the Fruit by the Foot, but disappointed to find that real strawberries turn a brownish shade when turned into fruit leather instead of the bright red of the processed kind. Oh well, it was too late to go back to the store to find something else, so the bow was just going to have to be brown. I thought Dots (with the tops cut off) would work just as well as Sprees and taste better with a lemon poppy seed cake, so I got those instead.

When making this cake, I ran out of both "Baker's Joy" (a flour & oil spray that is a super quick way to "grease and flour" your pans) and cake flour. I think it must be a sign . . .time to be done with cake baking. My husband helped out once again and zested and juiced the lemons (and then proceeded to eat one of them . . .he says it's good, but I can't imagine how sour that must have tasted). I made a lemon cream cheese frosting instead of the lemon buttercream in the recipe as Annie (of Annie's Eats) suggested.

I think on a whole, the cake turned out pretty good.  It was not a "big finish" like I was hoping for, but after all those cakes, I was tired. The raspberry curd was escaping while I was trying to frost it, and the cake appeared to be dry, but the combination of the lemony cake with the raspberry curd and the cream cheese frosting was really yummy.

I only got one comment about today's cake (mostly because everyone was busy filling out my cake survey . . .results of that to follow):

• I was dubious of the lemon/raspberry combo, but it works really well - delicious. Thanks! 

I am grateful this month is over with. I am so proud of all the cakes that I made, but this was a ton of work. Thank you again to all of my cake sponsors, I couldn't have done this without you! I only went a few dollars over my cake budget (all of the money supplied by the cake sponsors), but I will say that budget was more than $200, so cake baking is not a cheap hobby. I feel much more confident in my cake baking skills and I now have an arsenal of yummy cake recipes :) I think I will give myself another gold star this month!

p.s. For all of you who were concerned about my oral hygiene, I did manage to floss every day this month too ;)