Back to Baking~Lemon Crunch Cake

A belated Happy Birthday to Michael! Mike's birthday occurred a couple weeks ago so we celebrated with a game night get together with some friends.

Here's Mike's birthday cake. I wanted to bake him a cake from scratch so I attempted to make a lemon crunch cake. My mom kept raving about a cake she had tasted in San Francisco from a lemon crunch cake she tasted at a Japanese bakery. I searched online and found this recipe. I had also tasted The Alley's lemon crunch cake the last time I was back home in Hawaii, so at least I had a frame of reference of what to strive for.

The lemon crunch cake recipe is basically a chiffon cake recipe without the oil. It had a light texture and flavor and reminded me of a Japanese-type cake. The recipe tasted great and people who prefer less sweet desserts would really enjoy it. It's pretty much the opposite of a Costco or Sam's Club type birthday cake (although I am not complaining about these cakes, because some times they taste good too). If I were to tweak the online recipe to make it more like "The Alley's" cake, I'd stick with a traditional chiffon cake with oil, add more lemon flavoring and sugar, add more lemon flavoring to the whipped cream, and add a really good and tart lemon curd.

Here's the birthday boy with his cake.

Check out this cake that was made for a friend's birthday. If you're a fan of "Settlers of Catan" you'll like this cake.