A New Years Eve Cake

New Years Eve isn't a huge holiday for us, especially now that we have a baby. In the past, we've run the gamut of dinners out, large parties hosted by friends and game nights hosted by us. 

New Years Eve just happens to be my parents anniversary and this year they celebrated 42 years! Can you imagine 42 years of marriage? What do you get your parents on such an occasion? In the past I've purchased champagne and cards. This year I decided to bake them a cake. Who doesn't like cake, right?

After scouring my cookbooks for ideas, I played off a lovely lemon layer cake from Sandra Lee. I didn't go nearly as fancy as her creation, but what I made I made with love. This is a six layer cake from three baked cakes. Below I have photographed some of the steps.

Step One: Bake three 9 inch cakes. I baked a yellow cake but added lemon zest and the juice from half a lemon to the batter. 

Step Two: After the cakes have cooled, level them off and cut each cake in half horizontally. 

Step Three: Lay down first layer, cut side up.

Step Four: Apply a thin layer of lemon curd that's been stirred smooth. Continue to layer the cake and apply lemon curd to each layer. 

 Step Five: Place the top layer cut side down.

I made homemade lemon buttercream frosting. What I loved about the frosting is that you could see tiny bits of the lemon zest through out the cakes frosting!

Step Six: Frost the entire cake.

Bakers Note: Load up frosting on top of the cake and working the icing down the sides. Fill in with frosting as you frost the sides.

  I was super lazy at this point. Although I loved the look of the cake, I thought it needed a little something. So I used lemon frosting from the can for my decoration. Normally, I would make a batch of frosting but that was too much work for such minimal detail.

 Step Seven: Pick out tips and prepare your piping bag.

Step Eight: Start making tiny dots all around the cake.

Bakers Notes: I used Wilton Tip #10 for the dots.

 

And the finished product looks like this! I used the Wilton Tip #2 for the initial. Not too shabby for a homemade cake if I do say so myself. My parents loved it and my husband told me mine was better than the bakery slice we had purchased earlier in the week. Definite brownie points there....no pun intended! 

My holiday season was filled with homemade goodies. What are your thoughts on giving from the kitchen? Cheap or from the heart?