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Yellow 1-2-3-4 Cake w/Lemon Filling

Source of Recipe

Giovanna - EDC - 2000


Recipe Introduction

Yup that is the name of the cake!! It came out of one of my favorite cookbooks by Richard Sax called Classic Home Desserts.

Recipe Link: messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-fdcooking&msg=6006.1

List of Ingredients

3 cups sifted cake flour (not self rising)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups buttermilk or a mixture of plain or lemon yogurt thinned with milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Lemon Filling recipe below
Marshmallow Frosting recipe below


Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 3 8-inch round cake pans, or 2 9-inch round pans or 2 8-inch square pans.

Resift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until very light. Beat in the eggs, on at a time. Lower the speed to slow and beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk or yogurt mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat in the vanilla.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, dividing gently.
Bake until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center emerges clean, 30-35 mins.

Cool completely in the pans on wire racks. Run the tip of a knife around the sides of the cakes to loosen them from the pans: invert the cakes layers and use a desired.

Lemon Filling:
Juice and grated rind of 2 lemons
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs beaten
2 Tbsp butter melted

Grate yellow part only of the 2 lemons.

Put all ingredients in double boiler, stir over simmering water until thickend 15-20 mins. Chill.

Marshmallow Frosting: You need a candy thermometer for the frosting!!
1/3 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
pinch of salt
2 eggs whites
1 tsp vanilla
sweetened coconut (if desired)

Stir the water, sugar, cream of tartar and salt together in a small heavy-bottomed pan. Hook a candy thermometer to the edge of the pan and boil without stirring until mixture reaches 240 degrees.

Meanwhile, beat egg whites until stiff. Pour the 240° syrup over the whites is a thin stream, beating constantly until thick and glossy. Stir in vanilla. (Just adding my 2 cents here, watch the temp carefully!! If it goes just over 240° it gets brown and does not taste good!! This frosting should be pure white and taste like marshmallow! I actually have learned to pull the pan off the stove at 230-235 and start pouring the syrup then.)

To Assemble:
Put the chilled lemon filling between the cooled layers (this is a 3-layer cake). Try not to let too much of it get out of the sides, I usually leave a little border of cake because the filling tends to squish out a little when you put the layers on top of each other.

Frost the cake with the marshmallow frosting and sprinkle on the coconut (if you want, I don't usually use it as it makes the cake slide around too much with all the pressing to get it to stick!), thickly pressing it into the sides and top.

Decorate the cake with 3 raspberries in the center or around the outside edges.