My Favorite Way to Make a Layer Cake (and a Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting)

Do you get a little bit bored of making the same kind of layer cake by baking two eight inch cakes and layering them?  I started making layer cakes a different way and I like it so much I wanted to share it with you.

I bake the cake in a 15x10x1 sheet pan and cut it into thirds and then stack them. It makes a nice rectangular cake with three layers that are very pretty when you make your slices to serve.  You can use this technique with any regular cake recipe.  The only thing to keep in mind is that if you like a lot of frosting, you should make one and a half times the amount of frosting in a frosting recipe. Then you will have plenty.  I actually made just the regular amounts of frosting for the cakes you see in the photos.

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From Capri - Lemon Cake

Continuing on with my recipes inspired from our trip to Italy is this lemon cake. While we were on Capri, I had breakfast one morning that was just a simple piece of lemon cake, a fresh orange and a cappuccino.  It was just such a perfect breakfast in a place where there were either lemon groves or orange trees everywhere you looked. I bought a nice little ceramic lemon juicer on the island and knew right then and there that I would make a lemon cake for the blog when I got back. 

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Vanilla Bean Zabaglione with Berries

There is a reason this dessert is so popular in Italy.  You want to lick the glass it's served in, it's so good. I made these for dessert for our Valentine's dinner and my husband ate two.  

Zabaglione is a custard made with egg yolks, sugar and Marsala wine.  It's traditionally served warm but because I like make-ahead desserts, I'm serving mine cold and folding whipped cream into it to make it lighter. You can add your own touches to this recipe.  I added a little orange juice and also served the custard over fresh berries.

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