Lemon Cake with Blueberry Frosting

For my mother-in-law's birthday every year we go out for Chinese food and then come back to my place for cake and ice cream. (And by every year I mean for the last two years.) This year I decided I wanted to do something a little fancier so I spent some time scouring Pinterest for something that didn't sound too difficult, but looked pretty.

I eventually stumbled on this Betty Crocker recipe for Lemon Cake with Raspberry Mousse that I thought I could handle. Layer cakes make me nervous - when J and I were first married I attempted to make a layer cake for his birthday and it ended up being the ugliest cake ever - but I decided it was time to face my fears.

And I'm glad I did! I went with blueberry instead of raspberry which worked really well with the lemon cake. The cake ended up looking good (okay, good is a stretch, but it didn't look too bad!) and it was tasty.

In case you want to try it yourself, here's the recipe:

Lemon Cake with Blueberry Mousse
Adapted from this Betty Crocker recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of lemon cake mix (I used Betty Crocker)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups blueberry pie filling (I used Compliments by Sobeys)
• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream

Directions:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350°F (Or 325° for dark or non-stick pans)
2. Spray (or grease) two 8-inch round cake pans
3. In large bowl beat cake mix, buttermilk, oil, lemon peel and eggs with electric mixer. Beat on low for about 30 seconds then on medium for 1-2 minutes. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally.
4. Pour cake evenly into pans and bake as directed on the box.
5. Cool cakes in pans for 10 to 15 minutes then remove from pans to cooling racks. Cool cakes completely before frosting. (This is super important.)
6. Place one cake layer (rounded side down) on a serving plate then spread 3/4 cup of the pie filling over cake layer to within 1/4 inch of edge. Top with the second layer, rounded side up this time.
7. In chilled medium bowl, beat whipping cream with electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. (I worried I wouldn't be able to tell when it was the right consistency, but it was pretty obvious.) Beat in the remaining 1 1/4 cups pie filling on low speed just until blended. (I actually used a bit more of the pie filling since there was some left in the can, just to give it more of a blueberry flavour.)
8. Frost side and top of cake with blueberry mousse.

If you're not sure how to frost the cake (and I wasn't) check out this Youtube video:
 

 

 

Let me know if you try it out!