Lemon cake with Lemon Buttercream

My sister asked for lemon cake. I thought, this could be the perfect opportunity to make my first layered cake! I've only been baking cupcakes and cookies, so...we will see how this turns out!!! I looked up on the internet for recipe and came across Martha Stewart's Lemon Cake with a whipped frosting.

http://www.marthastewart.com/632498/lemon-cake?czone=food/cake-center/favorite-cake-recipes

It looks beautiful in the picture, so here goes!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour two 8-by-2-inch cake pans, tapping out excess flour. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. With mixer on low, beat in eggs and yolks, one at a time. Beat in 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix just until combined.

I bought these two 8x2" aluminum pans from Michaels. Dont' forget your 40% off coupon! (or 50% :D)

Divide batter between pans; smooth tops.

Bake until cakes pull away from sides of pans, 32 to 35 minutes. Let cool in pans 10 minutes. Run a knife around edges of pans and invert cakes onto a wire rack.

While cakes are baking, bring remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water to a boil in a saucepan. Add lemon slices and simmer 25 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer lemon slices to a waxed-paper-lined plate. Stir remaining 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice into syrup.

Using a toothpick, poke holes in warm cakes on rack. Brush with lemon syrup. Let cool completely. Prepare frosting, substituting 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice for vanilla extract. Frost cooled cakes and top with candied lemon slices.

For the frosting, I thought I'd try the whipped frosting that Martha Stewart used with her cake and see how that turns out. http://www.marthastewart.com/341535/whipped-frosting

It uses raw egg whites which I'm not too fond of, but proceeded anyways. I didn't have a double boiler so I improvised with a pot and another bowl. I was beating my lil (or err big) butt off, to keep the egg whites from cooking but I think my heat was still too high and some of it did cool. There were little bits of egg whites floating around when I was done, but I drained it, stuck it in the mixer and let it whip away. It actually turned out really nice. Except I didn't like it. It was airy and fluffy, but I think the cake should have something thicker like a buttercream or cream cheese frosting.

So I nixed that and used a simple Lemon Buttercream frosting recipe:

-3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar shopping list
-1/2 cup of butter (1 stick) softened shopping list
-1/4 cup of milk shopping list
-1 t vanilla shopping list
-1 T lemon zest (the rind of a lemon) shopping list
-1 T lemon juice (use 1 more T if necessary)

Then I started frosting my first cake.

Not too bad so far!!!

Then, TA DA!!!!

How's that? :) It's a bit uneven because I didn't trim the cake so it made the frosting uneven, but turned out better than I expected! It's a pretty moist cake, the syrup helped keep the cake moist. yayyerrr!!!