Happy Birthday to Husband

Friday was my husband's birthday.  As readers of this blog know, he is not a chocolate person.  Not even a little.  So when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, I knew what he wasn't going to say.  He is a big lover of all things lemon and berry, but he left it up to me to figure out exactly what it would look like.

I have made Dorie's French Yogurt cake a number of times and I thought it would make a good base for the birthday cake.  It is super simple to make and has a nice, but not overpowering lemon flavor.  To make the lemon flavor really pop, I decided to make one of my favorite recipes -- Dorie's Most Extraordinary Lemon Cream.  Now, there are those out there in blog land who claim that this lemon cream has too much butter.  There is a lot -- I will agree with that -- but it is AMAZING.  I would not eat it every day (if you did, you would have a serious heart problem), but for a special treat, it is really delicious.  

I made half the recipe for the lemon cream, which turned out to be not quite enough to cover the whole cake, but it came out with a nice rustic look.  I sliced the cake into three layers and put a layer of lemon cream and a layer of sliced raspberries between each one.  I then decorated the top with whole raspberries, which looked nice but made it difficult to cut.

This cake got rave reviews.  You can make all the parts a day in advance, but I would assemble it a couple of hours before serving.  You should make this for the non-chocolate eater in your life!

You can find the recipe for French Yogurt Cake here (I didn't do the glaze)

You can find the recipe for Lemon Cream here (I halved it)

All you need is a pint of fresh raspberries (or strawberries or blueberries) and you are ready to go.