Yesterday, I tried making this recipe:
https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/lemon-cake-recipe/ and I found it to be a much better recipe than the first one. I had never tried the "reverse creaming" method before and the crumb of the sponge came out very good...moist, tender, soft edges, etc. The frosting was also really good. The curd was much more tart than I am used to and I didn't think that it was sweet enough to hold up to the rest of the cake, but that's an easy fix. I didn't do the drip on the frosting. It's been overdone lately, so I thought I'd just to a pretty, ombred, spiral swirl, stating with a pale green and then yellow, light yellow, ending in creamy white. I liked the look, but it might need a little extra decor next time, such as lemon slices, or sugared leaves.
As for other possible improvements...
The DH thought that the crumb was too dense, but I didn't think so. That being said, I may try adding a couple of stiffly beaten egg whites to the next, trial cake batter and see what happens. I'm also going to try making a lemon syrup and brush it on the sponge layers for some extra, lemon flavor. I'm also considering spliting each layer into 2 layers, so that I can incorporate more lemon curd. I definitely need to make the lemon curd sweeter.
Overall, I was happy with the cake and it survived and made it to the cake stand in one piece this time.
