Lemon Surprise Chocolate Cake

I had the opportunity to bake a birthday cake for a few of my long time good friends over the past weekend :)


What better time to try the Ultimate Fudge Cake layer cake learnt during the workshop. Instead of baking the chocolate fudge cake with chocolate fudge frosting which is too sweet and rich, I decided to go for the Lemon Surprise Chocolate Cake - a bonus recipe in the recipe pack provided by Chef Joycelyn.

Basically, it's an assembly of:
- Chocolate Lemon Cake (2 layers)
- Rich Lemon Curd Filling
- Lemon & White Chocolate Buttercream
* The recipe calls for Limoncello Syrup to brush between the cake layers, but I don't wish to have alcohol in the cake, so left it out.

Followed the steps learnt in class closely and the whole baking process was relatively easy. Here comes the challenge - frosting.
The Lemon & White Chocolate Buttercream makes the cake look more elegant, yes? I think there's a slight improvement of the frosting as compared to the chocolate one did in class. But if you look closely, yes I still picked up some crumbs despite trying to spread the frosting as neatly as possible. In fact quite obvious since it's dark chocolate cake vs white chocolate buttercream. The surface of the cake was also not as even as it should be.

Decided to leave decoration simple as I ran out of patience for the frosting part :p

Feedback for the cake was not bad. The tangy lemon sort of balanced the sweetness of the chocolate cake. I guess this would make a good party/birthday cake, easy to bake just that frosting needs more practising.

Anyone needs a birthday/party cake? Variations - chocolate orange cake, chocolate rasberry cake, chocolate coffee...