Ready to make Southern Living’s 2020 White Cake? For this year’s 25th anniversary cake, we pulled out all the stops, not only giving you a recipe for decadent Coconut Cake with Coconut Cream Frosting, but also giving you three different filling options: Lemon Curd Filling, Cranberry Filling, or Whipped Chocolate Ganache Filling. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure layer cake for the holidays.

If you love the warm weather and sunshine, this lemon curd is the filling for you. Bright and acidic, this curd packs a lip-puckering punch of lemon flavor, balanced out by silky butter whisked in at the end of the cooking process. The result is a silky-smooth, creamy curd that holds its own between the cake layers, still delivering a little bite. It’s important to continuously stir your curd while cooking (otherwise, you may end up with scrambled eggs). Straining the curd makes it super smooth and creamy (and ensures that you don’t wind up with any little pieces of egg in your finished curd).

Prepare the filling at least four hours before you plan to make the cake so it has time to chill completely. The lemon curd filling can sit in the fridge for up to 3 days, so this is a step you can execute ahead of time.