My first stacked cake! It was scary but worth it. I made this for my friend Katie who didn’t get a birthday cake on her actual birthday. This is not ok. I believe that cake (or desert) must be had on ones birthday. Its a day for YOU so let them eat cake!

Original recipe located here: BAM!

Cake:

3 cups flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

4 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp of salt

3tbsp poppy seeds

2 sticks butter, softened

zest of one large lemon

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

5 egg whites

Syrup

1/3 cup water

Juice of one lemon

1/4 cup sugar

Frosting

Zest of one lemon

8oz cream cheese, soften

2 sticks of butter softened

5 cups powdered sugar

Oven 350. Butter and flour two 6x3 inch cake pans.

Cake: combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds in a mixing bowl. Add butter, zest, and only one cup of buttermilk. Once throughly mixed, beat for 2 minutes. In a separate bowl, whisky the remaining buttermilk with whites. Slowly add this into your batter. Pour into pans and bake for 30 minutes (I have an old oven so I ended up baking it for 40 because it just wasn’t setting! ugh)

Syrup: While cakes are cooling, mix everything into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Keep it boiling and slowly refuse the heat so the syrup is thicker and reduced in volume. While the cakes are warm, brush with the hot syrup and then let cool completely.

Frosting: Combine everything in a food processor and pulse until combined.**

** ok, so here is where it got tricky for me. I don’t own a food pro. So in my head I decided that a blender will just have to work. Ehhhhh not so much. I ended up melting a half of stick of butter so everything would actually mix within the blender. I poured our the frosting into a bowl where I let cool and harden. As I was frosting my cake, I did one layer then threw the bowl and the cake bake into the fridge to cool and harden again. then repeated, getting the layers in without getting cake bits in the frosting. I’m not the best at frosting cakes if I want to get the smooth look. I’m better with piping tools, but I’m learning!