Lemon cake is a delightful treat for any time of the year. Its light, its fluffy, its sweet, and its lemony. If you love our lemon cupcakes, you’ll love this cake!
Lemon Cake Creation
If lemon is life, this cake will fill you with joy. Recreating this cake is pretty simple and straight forward. To get a real lemon taste, we suggest using less diary products. Sometimes diary products can over power the true star of a dish or dessert. Through much trial and error, we finally find the perfect consistency of sour and sweet. This two layered cake resembles a lemon pound cake. But, this cake does not use a pound of each ingredient.
Lets talk Lemons…
When making anything lemon flavored, your best bet is to buy fresh ingredients. For quality taste, we suggest using organic lemons perfect in color and not bruised. Since, lemon zest is used we also suggest that you scrub the lemons well. This provides a clean product and removes any dirt on the lemons. When picking the lemons, aim for a gorgeous yellow color, that’s a little soft when squeezed.
The Ingredients
In order to make this cake sparkle, lots of lemon zest is needed. In addition to the lemon zest, lemon juice is also utilized. The lemon zest adds the lemon fragrances as well as flavor. While the lemon juice provides the needed citrus tart punch. A little trick with the lemon zest, is to blend it with the granulated sugar. Using a food processor, pulse together the sugar and lemon zest. This creates a lemon infusion, leading to an incredible lemon layered cake.
An additional ingredient used besides the basic, is sour cream. This product is used to add moisture/spongy like texture to the cake. Sour cream does a pretty amazing job without thinning out the cake batter. In addition to moisture, the sour cream adds acid. The acid develops a fine cake crumb because the flour (gluten) is tenderized. To balance the acid, stabilizers such as baking soda and baking powder are added. These two stabilizers prevent the cake from becoming a hot mess.
Making Lemon Buttercream
On to the finally part of this cake, the lemon goodness frosting. This frosting is similar to the lemon cupcake frosting. To replicate the buttercream all you’ll need is butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, lemon extract, and powdered sugar. To get a more creamy frosting, heavy cream can also be used. First, cream the butter until silky smooth. Then, slowly start adding sifted powdered sugar. When the mixture becomes too thick, add lemon juice or a little heavy cream. Simply continue this process until all the powdered sugar is incorporated. As a final touch, add in the lemon extract and lemon zest. Then use as desired.
Little Secret….
Before stacking and layering this stunning lemon cake. Poke a few holes in the cake and drizzle lemon juice/powdered sugar mixture. This provides the cake a little extra oomph. Trust me, you won’t regret it. Just try not to add too much liquid, or the cake will fall apart when stacking.
Lemon Cake with Lemon Buttercream
Ingredients
For Lemon Cake:
- 1 cup All purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup Granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
- 1/2 cup Unsalted Butter room temperature
- 2 Large Eggs room temperature
- 4 Tbsp Lemon zest
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- Juice of 1 Lemon
- 1/2 tsp Baking soda
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 2 Tbsp Whole Milk
- 1/2 cup Sour Cream
For Lemon Buttercream:
- 1 tsp Lemon extract
- 2 Tbsp Heavy cream
- 5 Tbsp Unsalted butter softened
- 1 Tbsp Lemon zest
- 2-4 Tbsp Lemon juice
- 4 cups Powdered sugar sifted
Instructions
For the Lemon Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two 6 inch diameter cake pans and line the pans with parchment paper.
- In a medium sized bowl whisk together the salt, cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
- Using a food processor, pulse together the granulated sugar and lemon zest for 30 seconds. Next transfer to an electric mixer.
- Cream the butter and granulated sugar/lemon zest mixture on medium-low speed. Allow to mix for 3-5 minutes, or until creamy. Scrape the sides of the bowl.
- In a measuring cup add the following together: sour cream, whole milk, and vanilla extract. Stir together and set aside.
- On medium-low speed alternate between adding the dry ingredients and the mixture of the wet ingredients. Scrape the sides of the bowl periodically. Continue alternating ingredients until all is added. Lastly, add in the lemon juice.
- Divide the cake batter evenly into the (2) cake pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cakes completely on a cooling rack before frosting. **
For the Lemon Buttercream:
- Place the unsalted butter into an electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.
- Slowly add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. If the buttercream becomes too thick add a tablespoon of lemon juice and heavy cream. Scrape the sides of the bowl often.
- Once all the powdered sugar is added. Add the lemon extract. Mix until fully incorporated.
- Fold in the lemon zest and use as desired. *