Lemon Berry Castle Cake

Recently my daughter had a birthday.  Can you guess how old she is?
At about the 4 1/2 year mark she had a strong connection with jam.  Jam on toast.  Jam on celery.  Jam on anything.  I didn't always comply, but when I saw this gorgeous cake at I Still Love You, I knew, I knew that I would be making it for her fifth birthday.  I am currently in the throws of chocolate abstinence, so this came at the best of times.  You can find the recipe here.

This cake is something else.  It's made with a coffee cake batter, so it's a bit more dense than most birthday cakes.  Jam was slathered in the center, and then there was a lemon frosting.  

Oh the frosting.

It was flavored with real lemons.  And the perfect consistency.  I am usually horrible at frostings, but this stuff was divine!

And then I had to add some girliness to it because somehow I got stuck in the rut of making exhausting 'really fun' birthday cakes for each kid and when they remember what so-and-so got last time... it's hard not to keep it up.  Besides, birthdays only come once a year, and they're my kid.  So I figure I get to try all of those fancy cakes you see in magazines and if it slowly melts, who cares!  I only have to make them every few months!

At about midnight the night before her birthday I all of a sudden had the urge to decorate her room for when she woke up.  So I taped together the fancy paper up there and quickly painted it, then taped it to her door.  I blew up a few balloons and threw them around her room for good measure.  If she had any other real birthday decorations experience to compare them to, she may have been let down.  But hey!  She's only five, so a messy poster and balloons are awesome right?  I could hear her gasp from my room when she woke up.  It was pretty adorable.  Then she must have woken her brother because he ran into my room with arms loaded with balloons and yelled, "It's a party!"

Yeah!  Sure bud!  It will be a party all day!

Everywhere we went that day he announced to everyone he met that we were currently having a party at our house.  So we came home and turned on some music and did just that.

And this girl.  She can't help but pose for every picture I take.  Every single one!  I happen to be okay with that.

In case you were wondering, I made the castle... um, walls?  I guess those would be castle walls, I made them from the tube from clear plastic wrap that ran out.  No toilet paper rolls on my cake please.  I cut the tube into different sizes and frosted them.  Then I frosted some mini ice cream cones as well.  I just stuck them on the lemon frosting when ready and topped them with waffle cones.  For the smaller towers I cut the cones down a bit so they would fit better.  It is WAY easier than it looks.  I used a plastic baggie with a tip cut off to squeeze out all the vines and flowers.  And they're vines, so they can be squiggly right?  If you look close it's a pretty messy cake, it's just all the detail that makes it look fancy.  You can do it!

I'll be honest.  I love coffee cake, but I think I will use a fluffy vanilla cake next time.  And maybe instead of jam in the center I'll use the lemon frosting for that too.  It was just so good.

All right!  My baby is screaming, the kids are downstairs yelling to neighbor kids from out our window, and half of my upstairs is in the midst of being organized (so let's face it, it's just one giant mess).  See what happens when you try to blog?  When will I ever learn...

But thanks for stopping by!  Wish I could visit with you more :)