Prettiest party cake so far

When I got an order for a September birthday cake, I couldn't help but use Dorie Greenspan's recipe from her new cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours. Perfectionist that she is, the recipes in the book have been very accurate, and I love Dorie for this. In fact I liked her recipe so much after reviewing it that I baked 2 cakes. 1 as a trial to make sure all went well the second time. There's nothing worse than vague baking instructions causing mediocre end-products. Too bad the cake was devoured, admittedly by myself and coworkers, before I managed a snapshot of the sliced version. If I did, you'd see bright red raspberry preserves seeped in between the snow white layers of cake. The traditional (just the way I like it) meringue buttercream is so velvety smooth with a fresh zing of lemon.

I highly recommend this cake for anyone who has the time to bake. It's a definite winner for celebrations. Brief description: Lemon cake with raspberry fill and lemon meringue buttercream frosting -- coated with shredded coconut, and topped with handmade sugar butterflies. The butterflies were inspired by Peggy Porschen's Pretty Party Cakes. It took a while to put the sugar pieces together (and do all the dishes) but it was well worth the effort.