St. Patrick's Day Lime Cake

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Happy St. Patrick's Day! I think there's a little bit of Irish in all of us around this time of the year. Let us celebrate with this lime cake and let the parade begin!

After watching Craftsy's Online Cake Decorating Class, Jessica Harris' Clean and Simple Cake Design, I was inspired to create a patterned cake and try out her methods. Of all the Craftsy classes that I have seen, this one is my favorite so far. I really like graphic patterns and the techniques showed are what I can most likely use often.

Jessica also shares how she prepares her cakes to get that really smooth fondant with razor sharp edges. Here is my buttercream (left) and fondant (right) covered cake looked like after using her methods. Granted, it took me a longer to cover my cakes than usual but I am super happy with the results. Not too shabby, eh?

After watching Jessica Harris' Clean and Simple Cake Design online class, I was inspired to create a patterned cake and try out her methods. Of all the Craftsy classes that I have seen, this one is my favorite so far. I really like graphic patterns and the techniques showed are what I can most likely use often.

Jessica also shares how she prepares her cakes to get that really smooth fondant with razor sharp edges. Here is my buttercream (left) and fondant (right) covered cake looked like after using her methods. Granted, it took me a longer to cover my cakes than usual but I am super happy with the results. Not too shabby, eh?

I also used her wax paper transfer technique to apply the patterns on the side of the cake. I used Satin Ice fondant for this cake to cut out the pattern. I wanted the design to have two tones of green so first I had to cut out the light green pattern and stick that to the cake. Then I cut out the darker green pattern and stick that to the top of the light green one.

Ooh and wait,there’s even a surprise inside the cake! It has four different shades of green. I was so excited to cut into it. Even though it’s an unusual color for a cake, I think it’s still pretty!

I don’t always color cake batter and I did not realize that creating different shades can be quite challenging. My first plan of action was to divide the batter into four bowls and use green food coloring (that I got from the grocery store) and add a drop more at a time per bowl. I thought that would be enough. Nope, it barely just tinted the cake. I added more and more green coloring and I was already getting concerned that too much liquid with change the batter, so I added leaf green gel color to get it darker. It did work to a certain extent especially for the mid tones. But to get the darkest shade of green I had to add juniper green; it gave that rich deep color that I was looking for.

Adding green coloring

Used 3 diifferent kinds of green coloring

Ahh not enough

Finally, different shades of green

At the time that I was brainstorming for a green cake flavors, I could only come up with lime cake. I later discovered other green cakes through my Facebook friends, I wished I had asked them earlier. Of course, now I know other green cakes do exist like pistachio, matcha or pandan - oh well, next time.

Nevertheless, the lime cake was still delicious and I have no regrets making it. It came out moist and had a delicate lime flavor that is not overpowering at all. What I like about this recipe is that it does not use lime flavored jello like other lime cake recipes just to get that flavor. And the lime cream cheese icing is the perfect filling. I could have happily frosted the entire cake with this frosting but because I wanted to cover this cake with fondant I would need a frosting that would set firm, so I used Italian meringue buttercream to cover the exterior of the cake. If you want to cover the entire cake with cream cheese icing, just double the recipe.

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Lime Cake Recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp grated lime zest
1/4 cup lime juice
3 cups cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk (OR add 1 T. vinegar to 1 c. milk, let stand 5 minutes)
green food coloring (optional)

Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp grated key lime zest
3 cups confectioners/powdered sugar

METHOD

Preheat oven to 325 F. Prepare pans and line the bottom with parchment circles. I used 6” round pans to get higher cakes but 8” or 9” will be ok too.

In a bowl mix the butter with sugar until creamy in color. Add the eggs one at a time mixing after each addition.

Add the vanilla, lime zest and juice and mix for 30 seconds. Scrape bowl with a rubber spatula and mix for another 30 seconds.

In another bowl, mix the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Stir the flour mixture alternately with buttermilk into the butter mix, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides and beat for another minute.

Pour batter in prepared cake pans and bake for approx. 30 - 40 minutes for the 6" pans. The cake is ready when an inserted wooden skewer or cake tester comes out clean or when cake springs back when lightly pressed with a finger.

Let the cake cool in pans for about 10 minutes. Loosen the sides with a knife or metal spatula and invert to a metal rack. Invert again to another rack to prevent the cake from splitting.

Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Beat butter and cream until light and creamy. Add lime juice and zest. Carefully mix in the confectioners’sugar a cup at a time, mixing between additions. Scrape bowl and mix again until well blended. This recipe is enough to fill the cake, double the recipe if covering the whole cake.

Happy St. Paddy's Day everyone!

May you be lucky on this day and always :)

Sweet regards,

You might also like:

Easter Basket Cake

Angel Food Cake

Masquerade Cake

St. Patrick's Day Lime Cake Top

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