Lemon-raspberry rose cake

We had very special friends visiting from out of state this past weekend. We hadn't seen them in almost five years, so we were thrilled! Needless to say, I just had to make a special cake for their visit. I baked a lemon layer cake (which was my vanilla cake recipe with the zest of 1 lemon and 1 tsp lemon extract added to the batter- click here for the vanilla cake recipe). Then, I made a raspberry mousse filling out of raspberry fruit yogurt, whipped cream and gelatin. To add a little more of the raspberry flavor, I "poked" the cake and soaked it with raspberry jello (before it had set). It was pretty to look at too, once we cut into it, plus it produced a very moist cake. The frosting I made was a lemon-flavored buttercream which I actually mixed with cream cheese to make it more tangy. This, however, didn't work 100% successfully with my idea of making a rose-covered cake because the cream cheese frosting made the roses on the side of the cake "sag"- as you can see on the pictures. So, next time I make a rose cake, I will definitely be using a stiff consistency buttercream. I do like the rose design and will be making it again in the future.

A close-up of the roses on top. I sprinkled some pink "fairy dust" (as my daughter calls it) and pearls on top, to make it even more feminine.

And this is how it looked when we cut into it: