Lemon Cake with Raspberry Curd

This past Saturday, Nov 6th, was my birthday (I'm sure I'll be receiving your belated gifts in the mail).  Many people only have cake to celebrate birthdays, but there are tons of other excuses to eat/bake a cake (maybe yours is that today is a random Tuesday).  The reason for this cake was that on October 6th Kevin and I celebrated our third year of marriage.  For this year's anniversary, I made a lemon cake with raspberry curd (one of the flavor combos of our wedding cake).  The raspberry curd was amazing and the cake was perfectly moist and lemony!  I definitely recommend this combination when you are deciding on cake flavors for any occasion.

Lemon Cake
From Beantown Baker

1 1/2 cups + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
2 1/4 cups cake flour, plus more for dusting the pans
1 cup + 2 tablespoons whole milk, at room temperature
6 large egg whites (3/4 cup), at room temperature
2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp table salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened but still cool

Set oven rack in middle position. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans (or one 9x13 baking pan) with butter; line the bottoms with parchment. Spray the parchment, dust the pans with flour, and invert pans and rap sharply to remove excess flour.

Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts into 2-cup glass measure, and mix with fork until blended.

Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add cake flour, baking powder, and salt to mixer bowl and mix at slow speed. Add butter; continue beating at slow speed until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no powdery streaks remaining.

Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat 30 seconds more. Stop mixer and scrape sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium speed and beat 20 seconds longer.

Divide batter evenly between the prepared cake pans; using rubber spatula, spread batter to pan walls and smooth tops. Arrange pans at least 3 inches from the oven walls and 3 inches apart. Bake until thin skewer or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 23 to 25 minutes.

Let cakes rest in pans for 3 minutes. Loosen from sides of pans with a knife, if necessary, and invert onto wire racks. Reinvert onto additional wire racks. Let cool completely, about 1 1/2 hours.

Raspberry Curd
From Annie's Eats

8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 pint ripe raspberries or 1 12-oz. package frozen raspberries, thawed
5 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2-3 tsp fresh lemon juice 

To make the raspberry curd, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the raspberries, egg yolks, sugar and salt, and cook, mashing the berries.  Stir frequently at first and then constantly at the end, until thickened, about 10 minutes.  Pour the mixture through a coarse strainer set over a bowl, pressing hard on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible.  Cool to room temperature; the curd will continue to thicken as it cools.  Stir in lemon juice to taste.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.