Lemon curd cake for Racquel

Happy New Year! I am back from holidays, although because it was an action-packed vacation, I cannot truthfully say that I feel refreshed. I have posted about my foodie adventures in New Zealand's South Island here. I hope that you enjoy reading about them, and perhaps will be enticed to visit there yourself some day. I highly recommend it!

On Monday, another work colleague, Racquel, celebrated her birthday. As Racquel is bright and sunny, and she is English, I though that there would be no better way to celebrate her birthday than with a bright and sunny lemon curd cake by none other than the grand doyenne of English kitchens, Delia Smith.

The recipe for this lovely cake can be found here on Delia's website. I only made two layers because my cake tins are 20cm in diameter instead of 18cm, and instead of using Delia's lemon curd recipe, I used a delightful Martha Stewart recipe that I found here at the Cupcake Bakeshop site. (Be warned - you could eat the whole batch of curd with a spoon before it goes anywhere near the cake, as it is absolutely morish!) For the finishing touch, I decorated the cake with sugar pansies and leaves.

This cake is really easy to make because everything is mixed together in the one bowl. The only tricky bit is turning out the cakes, because they are a little fragile and tended to stick to the wire cooling rack. It is delightfully lemony in flavour - if you love a light, citrus-flavoured cake, you will love this.