Strawberry cake with jam and lemon curd

Question: What to do when you have a ton of fruit salad that's taking up all the room in your fridge? Aaaaaand you need to make a birthday cake for someone at your mom's work?

Answer: Strawberry cake with home-made strawberry and blueberry jam and lemon curd left over from the blueberry cake you made on Saturday!!

Strawberry Cake with Jam and Lemon Curd
Recipe adapted from Cooking by Moonlight

Ingredients:
(for the cake)

• 2 cups ap flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups strawberries, mashed

(for the jam)

• 2 cups strawberries and blueberries (you can pretty much use any berry combo)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• water

Lemon Curd Recipe Here

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans.
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside.
Mix together the softened butter and sugar until combined. (I let my butter soften in a dish on the stove while it's preheating). Then add the eggs and vanilla and stir to combine.
Pour the dry into the wet and stir until there are just a few small lumps. The batter will be stiff compared to many cake batters, that's okay... the strawberries will loosen it up.
Wash the strawberries and remove their green tops. Using a potato masher or fork mash the strawberries into strawberry soup. Pour the crushed strawberries, juices and all, into the cake batter and stir just until evenly distributed.
Pour the batter evenly into the two pans and use a knife or spatula to spread the batter evenly in the pans.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out with just a few small crumbs attached.

Make the lemon curd according to the directions in the above link.

Make the jam by putting the berries, sugar, and a splash of water in a saucepan and cooking over medium heat for about 25 minutes, stirring pretty often. Don't put the heat too high or it will burn the bottom of the pan.

Once the cake, jam, and curd are cool, cut each cake layer in 2 to yield 4 layers. Put lemon curd in between two layers and jam in one layer and on the top of the cake.

I think tomorrow I am going to sift a little powdered sugar on top just to be fancy, this cake really doesn't need an icing, it's got all kinds of delicious spreads going on. I could see a ganache or something since strawberry and chocolate go so well together but I'm going to let this one be for now.

Lemon Curd

This is a really easy recipe from Fabulous Foods. I like it because you just use a heavy bottom sauce pan rather than a double boiler blah blah blah. Double boilers are annoying and good for burning yourself.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar

Directions
In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until well combined, about 2 minutes. Slowly add the eggs and egg yolks. beat for another minute then mix in the lemon juice and zest. Don't worry if the mixture looks curdled like in the photo, it will smooth out when it cooks like in the photo above.
Transfer the mixture to a heavy based saucepan and cook over low heat until it looks smooth. Increase heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens, about 12-15 minutes. You will know its ready when it will leave a path on the back of a sppon or register 170°F on a candy thermometer. Do not let the mixture boil!
Makes about 2 cups Transfer cooked curd to a bowl and press plastic wrap on the surface to keep a skin from forming. The curd will thicken as it cook, so chill completely in the refrigerator. It should last for about a week, covered tightly, in the refrigerator.

Photo Credit: Fabulous Foods