Oh, Lemony Lemonade Luciousness, How I Love Thee

What a week this has been!  A little odd in some ways, as a couple of co-workers and friends helped maintain my own disillusions of it being Friday when it was only Thursday.  We were all confused at some point during the day on Wednesday and Thursday as to what day it really was so that we were all quite disappointed on Thursday to learn that we still had one more day to come into the office before the reprieve of the weekend.  Silly bunnies (as a friend of mine would say). 

Today it is Saturday.  En fin!!! 

I must also share that I had a lovely birthday lunch on Friday with two special people that I work with.  We went to The Breakside Brewery in Portland specifically to have the amazing Breakside Burger with waffle fries.  This is one of the juiciest burgers on the face of the planet with a little surprise nugget of soft, melted, velvety blue cheese in the center and topped with mushrooms and caramelized onions.  Seriously.  When they ask your order, just say, "Breakside Burger, extra napkins."  Seriously.  I think my stomach just growled. 

It's safe to say that I've been experiencing a new addiction to Pinterest.  It is so much fun!  For those of you who have yet to explore the Pinterest play pen, it's basically people sharing their own web searches and items of interest by sharing (or "pinning") pictures from websites on virtual billboards.  One of the recent pins that caught my eye was a Lemonade Layer Cake.  The original recipe from allrecipes.com that I used can be seen by clicking here. 

This cake, despite it's multiple layers and frosting, makes up surprisingly quickly.  It cooks in just 20-30 minutes and cools fairly fast.  In the original recipe, it says to chill the frosting for an hour, but I opted to skip that part and, instead, just popped the whole cake in the fridge for about 30 minutes after frosting it to let it set up and it came out just dandy!

Here is a picture of the final product, which was deliciously lemony and sweet.  The ample lemon zest (I have several quite naked lemons in my kitchen right now!) gives a nice texture to the dense and moist cake.  Seriously, my mouth is watering as I try to think of worthy words to describe it!  ~slurp~

The original recipe is a 9" double layer cake, but I only had 8" pans, so I made 3 layers to avoid over-filling my pans. 

After they cooled completely, I started stacking the layers and applying a thin layer of frosting between each.  I think the frosting is delicious!!!  I was afraid I hadn't made quite enough frosting, so I was being a little chintzy with it between the layers (next time, I will exercise no constraint!!!).  I had a little bit leftover and I desperately looked for something to slather it on - a cookie, a pancake, a flip flop... something! 

After I frosted the whole cake, top and sides, I put a little additional zest on top just for a delicate and pretty appearance. 

This will be a great cake to make for a summer picnic or potluck.  It's very fresh and the cake is quite pretty, even with my less than professional frosting skills. 

Enjoy!!

"With the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible."- Julia Child