If it doesn’t look like the picture, but still tastes good, did you fail?

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Have you ever found something on Pinterest and thought, “That looks fantastic!  I can do that!”  And then the finished product turns out totally different than you envisioned it.  So did you fail?  I think not!  Albert Einstein once said, “Failure is success in progress.”

Last summer my daughter Steph wanted to make a lemon cake recipe she found online.  The picture of the cake she found was a thing of beauty.  She carefully read through and studied the instructions, gathered all the ingredients, and went to work.  Lining the two round cake pans with a square piece of parchment paper was not easy.  This was supposed to make the cake easier to remove from the pan.  After the cake was baked and cooled, the instructions said to take the cakes out of the oven and turn them onto cooling racks.  Sadly when she did this, the parchment paper had not made things easier as promised.  When she ever so carefully turned them onto the cooling racks, the cakes were not uniform in shape, and sadly began to crumble and fall apart in large chunks when she removed the parchment paper. 

Trying to salvage all that time and energy, she did her best to place the first cake on a beautiful crystal cake plate.  Then when she tried to spread the frosting on the top of that cake in preparation to flip the second less crumbled cake on top, the frosting made the bottom cake fall apart even more.  By this point, she knew the cake would not be “Pinterest Pin Worthy”, but she was not willing to throw in the towel.  She kept at it, and got the second cake in place atop the first one. 

She did her best to cover up all the broken pieces as she carefully spread the frosting over the entire creation.  It seemed each time the cakes were touched by anything, they crumbled and fell apart even more.  By this point, we were both laughing so hard we were almost crying.  Undaunted, she didn’t give up!  She finished frosting the cake, and served it to the kids and Grandma Eileen – Ron’s 95 year old mother whom we all love and adore.  Did she add all the beautiful embellishments of edible pansy flowers and sliced lemons? Was she able to cut it and serve it with a beautiful serving knife? Nope, but she did her best and ended up spooning it onto their plates.  Bowls might have been a better choice as it resembled more of a pudding than a cake. :) But guess what?  After all the steps that might have been perceived as failures, the cake tasted wonderful!

So be brave!  Try new things, and enjoy the learning process . . . even if it doesn’t turn out like you had planned.  The challenge is to make it fun, enjoy the journey, and learn to laugh when things don’t go according to your plans.  Will she make the cake again?  That question remains to be answered. :)  Looking at things in a different way, creates LIGHT!

Have a great week!  Love Ya, Les :)

By the way if you want the real recipe, click on the link below and it will take you to the Preppy Kitchen website, and you can give the lemon cake a try of your own.  I’ve also included the recipe below.

https://preppykitchen.com/lemon-cake/

Lemon Cake

Bursting with lemon flavors, this Lemon Cake recipe will brighten your day. Sweet, tart, and tangy, this cake is made from scratch with real lemons! (CourseDessert | CuisineAmerican)

Prep Time: 30 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 10 servings | Calories: 1005kcal

Author: John Kanell

Equipment

  • 8" cake pans

  • Parchment paper

  • Mixing Bowls

  • Electric or stand mixer

Ingredients

For the Lemon Cake:

  • 2½ cups all-purpose flour (300g)

  • 1½ teaspoons baking powder

  • ½ teaspoon baking soda

  • ¾ teaspoon salt

  • 1 cup unsalted butter softened (227g)

  • 1½ cups granulated sugar (300g)

  • 2 tablespoons lemon zest (about 2 lemons)

  • 3 large eggs

  • 1 cup buttermilk (240ml)

  • ¼ cup lemon juice (about 2 lemons) (60ml)

  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For the Frosting:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature (227g)

  • 8 ounces cream cheese room temperature (226g)

  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest (about 1 lemon)

  • 7 cups powdered sugar (840g)

  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon)

  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

For the Cake:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease two 8-inch round cake pans and line with parchment paper.

  2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

  3. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat the butter on medium speed until creamy. Add the sugar and lemon zest and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the vanilla then eggs one at a time, scrape down the bowl between additions, and beat until well combined and fluffy.

  4. Stir the buttermilk and lemon juice together.

  5. With the mixer on low speed, add a third of the flour mixture followed by half of the milk mixture. Continue, alternating between the flour and milk, mixing just until combined. Stop and scrape down the bowl occasionally. Divide the batter among the prepared cake pans.

  6. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the center of the cakes are springy to the touch and the sides are just starting to pull away from the pan. Let the cakes cool in the pan for 15 minutes then invert and cool completely on a wire rack.

For the frosting:

  1. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and cream cheese together on medium speed until creamy and well combined. Add the lemon zest and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

  2. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the confectioners’ sugar alternating with a little bit of the lemon juice. Stop occasionally and scrape down the bowl. Beat in the vanilla. Once combined, increase the speed to medium-low and beat until smooth and fluffy, about 1 minute.

For the Assembly:

  1. Remove the parchment paper from the cake layers. Place one layer on a cake stand or serving plate. Top with 1 cup of frosting, spreading smoothly out to the edges. Top with the second cake layer and spread the remaining frosting all over the outside of the cake. Decorate with thin lemon slices or edible flowers, if desired.

Notes

  • Measure your flour correctly! Adding too much flour to the recipe is the most common mistake that will yield a dry and dense lemon cake. The best and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale. If you don’t have one, fluff the flour with a spoon, sprinkle it into your measuring cup, and use a knife to level it off. If you scoop the flour straight from the bag, you overpack the measuring cup.

  • If the tops of your cake layers are domed, use a serrated knife to cut off the top so you can stack them evenly. Alternatively, if you’re worried about doming, use cake strips to help your cake layers come out evenly. Cake strips work by keeping the outside edge of the pan cooler to ensure that the entire cake rises at the same rate, preventing a dome from forming in the middle. If you don’t want to buy cake strips, I have a post on how to DIY cake strips.

  • Any ingredients that you keep in the fridge, take out ahead of time to bring them to room temperature, so they mix evenly into the batter.

  • Be gentle when handling the layers during assembly, as the cake is very tender.

  • When zesting the lemon, make sure only to zest the yellow parts. The white layer underneath is bitter.

  • To get more juice from the lemons, roll them under your hand on the countertop to loosen the juices.