Birthday party food.

My sister in law recently celebrated a birthday and her mom (who was throwing her a surprise party) asked me to make a lemon birthday cake for the party.  So, I made a lemon sheet cake with cream cheese icing.

I decided to make a layered sheet cake as opposed to a round layer cake since I didn't think a round cake would be large enough as there were 16 to 18 people attending the party.  This recipe turned out to be the perfect size, allowing for everyone to have one piece and several people to have seconds.

In the past, I've experimented with using lemon zest and juice as a way of adding lemon flavour. However, the cake ends up being much to dense and heavy.  As well, the icing will have little bits of lemon zest in it, which some people find off putting.  Thus, in both the cake and the icing I used pure lemon oil to add a vibrant lemon flavour without being too much.  I used Boyajian Pure Lemon Oil http://www.boyajianinc.com/baking.html

I also used an unusual method of preparing the cake batter that I've often heard called the "paste method".  Instead of creaming the butter and sugar together, then adding the eggs and so on.  This method starts by mixing the flour, leavening with sugar and then adding room temperature butter. The idea is that by mixing the flour with the butter, it insulates or coats the flour making for a very tender crumbed and moist cake. One note: this recipe works best when using a stand mixer or a handheld mixer.  It could be done by hand, but I've found it very difficult mixing the flour butter portion without over mixing and ending up with more dense a cake than desired.

I also made a really lovely cream cheese icing that has great flavour and holds it texture while icing the cake.  I've tested many cream cheese icing recipes in the past and often found they end up too runny and slide off the cake (especially in the summer months).  What I've found is that by increasing the amount of butter and decreasing the amount of cream cheese.  You end up with light and fluffy icing that holds it shape beautifully (staying put on the cake) while still having that distinctively tangy cream cheese flavour.

Here's the cake batter recipe and method:

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups white sugar
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup of whole milk (also known as homo milk), at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract (still need this even though the predominant flavour is lemon)
1/4 teaspoon of lemon oil
4 large eggs at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, grease two standard jelly roll sheet trays (I used a 9 x 15) with butter or lard, and line with parchment paper.  Then grease again (over the parchment) and coat with all purpose flour (not pastry flour, which will clump up and be difficult to work with in this instance).

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large mixing bowl if using a handheld mixer), sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and add salt.  Then with the mixer on low speed, add the room temperature butter bit by bit until completely incorporated (should take approximately 3 or 4 minutes) until you have a pebbly mixture.  In a wet measure jug, combine the milk, vanilla, lemon oil and eggs, whisking until fully combined.  With mixer on low speed, slowly pour milk mixture into the flour mixture.  Scrape down the sides of bowl with a spatula and turn mixer up to medium high and mix for another minute or so until the mixture is fully combined.  Occasionally pause to scrape down the sides of mixing bowl again.  Once batter is well mixed (but don't over do this, just mix until well combined), give the mixture a good scrape and stir with the spatula once more to ensure that there are no clumps left at the bottom or sides of the bowl.  Now pour the batter into the prepared jelly roll tins making sure to distribute the mixture evenly.  Bake for approximately 15 to 20 minutes (every oven cooks a little differently so I would set timer for 15 minutes, check for doneness and put back in the oven if needed). The cake is done when the surface springs back when touched or a cake tester comes out clean or with minimal crumbs.

Here's the recipe and method for the cream cheese icing:

*Please keep in mind the icing quantities are very large as this is a large cake.  It may seem like too much icing, but in order to properly ice the cake you really need quite a lot.  There is nothing worse than making a cake and running out of icing or having bits of the cake visible through the icing.  Not to mention, in the event you end up with some left over - it freezes beautifully in an air tight container.

Again, it's makes your life so much easier to use a stand mixer for this (with the whisk attachment, not paddle attachment) or a hand held mixer.  I've attempted to make this by hand and it's just too difficult to incorporate enough air to create a light and fluffy texture.  I should also mention that I use a Kitchen Aid 5 quart Pro Series stand mixer which can accommodate this large of a recipe.  If you're using a smaller 3 quart stand mixer, you'll need to cut the recipe in half and make it in two stages.

6 cups (3 pounds) of unsalted butter at room temperature
3 cups (3 packages) of cream cheese at room temperature
1 tsp of vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon of lemon oil
pinch of salt
2 to 3 cups of icing sugar, sifted
2 drops of yellow food colouring

Add butter and cream cheese to the bowl of a stand mixer (or large mixing bowl if using a handheld mixer), using the whisk attachment, combine the ingredients together.  Then turn the speed up to high and whip the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy (approximately 5 minutes) occasionally scraping the sides and bottom of bowl with a spatula.  Turn off mixer and add the vanilla extract, lemon oil and pinch of salt and mix again until absorbed into butter and cream cheese.  Then on the lowest setting, gradually add sifted icing sugar 1/4 cup at a time (scraping sides occasionally) until the icing is nicely sweetened and still light and fluffy in texture.  I've listed 2 to 3 cups of icing sugar in the ingredients list because I find making frosting isn't always an exact science (for me at least). Sometimes I end up using the whole 3 cups of sugar and other times I only need 2 cups.  Nonetheless, after adding 2 cups of icing sugar I recommend stopping the mixer and tasting the icing to see if it needs more sugar or not.  As well, the more sugar that's added, the softer and runnier the icing becomes.  Thus, I recommend being mindful of how the texture is looking while adding sugar.  Lastly, once sugar is added, turn mixer up to high speed for a minute, then scrape the sides and bottom of bowl once more.

Remove 3/4's of the finished icing to a separate bowl for frosting the entire cake.  The remaining 1/4 of icing left can be used for piping the edges and writing a message on the cake.  Thus, add a couple drops of yellow food colouring to 1/4 of remaining frosting and continue to mix.  The result is a base icing that's a soft white in colour and decorative icing for piping that is a nice lemony yellow colour.  

Here's are the tools I used for frosting and decorating the cake: Ateco ultra medium 8 inch straight edge spatula to ice the entire cake and create an ultra smooth surface, Wilton disposable piping bags, Wilton # 32 Open Star for piping the edges, Wilton # 5 Round for the Swiss dots and writing on cake. I also used a Wilton 14 x 20 lace cake board to serve the cake on.  I taped two of them together to ensure the weight of the cake would be supported.

Once again, here is the finished product!