Mini Vanilla Bean Cakes with Lemon Curd And Raspberry Filling

I have never really honed my cake baking skills and I hope to do so sometime soon.  I do like baking cakes though I hate eating cakes.  I have never liked cake.

Unlike me, my family LOVES cake.  Occasionally I break down and make some for them and I really like making individual cakes.  The cake-a-holics like having one to themselves. First, I lined each springform with parchment paper and sprayed them with cooking spray.

For the batter I used a basic yellow vanilla cake recipe.

Not being certain how long these would take, I opened the oven door to check on them too often and the centers fell a bit.  This is why I need to work on my cake baking skills.  This is just a stupid mistake and I should have known better.

However, I soldered on and cut them in half.  I placed the indented side down which flattened out from the weight of the rest of the cake.

I brushed each side with simple syrup, seedless raspberry jam and lemon curd and then sandwiched them bake together.

Then I made a classic buttercream vanilla bean frosting and covered them in it.

To finish, I sprinkled them with clear sanding sugar.

 I tried to get closeups of them cut.  This did not work well.  I also need to hone my photography skills.

Maybe at some point in the future I will be able to bake glorious cakes and take beautiful pics of them.  Or not.