Step 1

Grease your 6-inch cake pans, then line the bottom with a 6-inch circle of parchment. I do this by sitting the cake pan on a piece of parchment, tracing it, and cutting it out.

Step 2

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Step 3

Sift together your flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl.

Step 4

Form a well in the center of the dry ingredients. In the well, add in your water, oil, egg yolks. vanilla, lemon zest, lemon juice.

Step 5

Mix to combine.

Step 6

In a CLEAN bowl with a CLEAN whisk or hand mixer, whisk the eggs whites and cream of tartar to stiff peaks.

Step 7

Fold about 1/4 of the egg whites into your cake batter. Folding carefully.

Step 8

Fold in this rest of the egg whites until they are all incorporated. Be careful not to deflate the egg whites very much.

Step 9

Divide the batter between the pans, either 3,6-inch, or 2,8-inch.

Step 10

Move to oven and bake for about 30-45 minutes. The cake will be a light golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Step 11

Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes.

Step 12

Run a knife around the edges and remove them from the pan. These cakes were small enough I turned them out onto my hand, then right side up on the cooling rack.

Step 13

If that makes your nervous, set a cooling rack on top and remove that way.

Step 14

Allow the cakes to cool.

Step 15

Once they are cooled, start the buttercream.

Step 16

Add the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla to a bowl. Start by adding 2 tablespoons milk. Mix on high speed until well blended. Check the consistency. If you want to a add more milk, do it.

Step 17

Level your cake tops. What that means is cut off the top where is had domed to level it. This makes it so much easier to stack the layers, so don't skip this step!

Step 18

Pipe your buttercream around the top edge of the bottom cake.

Step 19

Fill inside the piping with the lemon curd. I used about 2/3 cup in mine.

Step 20

Stack the next 2 layers, repeating this process with each layer.

Step 21

On the last, top layer, top with your chopped strawberries.