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This Lemon Layer Cake is sure to be a crowd-pleaser. From its delicate crumb to its bright, lemony aroma, each element of this recipe is designed to delight the senses and leave you craving more. Stick around and I’ll break down all the sweet details of each tasty element right here!
Lemon Layer Cake Ingredients
- Whole milk: The fat in whole milk helps to tenderize the cakes crumb. It also interacts with the flour to create just enough gluten to form the cakes structure.
- Egg whites: helps create structure.
- Lemon emulsion: I prefer to use emulsions. The flavor doesn’t bake out like extracts can. If you prefer an all natural cake you can leave this out and use 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract instead. You’ll still get a light lemon flavor from the lemon zest.
- Cake flour: has a lower protein content than all-purpose flour which helps create a delicate crumb.
- Granulated sugar: Sugar not only sweetens the cake but it also helps tenderize, leavens and browns.
- Baking powder: is a leavener that contains baking soda and cornstarch. Baking soda reacts twice. The first is when it comes into contact with liquid and then when it is heated. Baking soda can’t be used as a substitute for baking powder.
- Salt: helps bring out the sweetness in the cake.
- Fresh lemon zest: helps with flavor.
- Unsalted butter: tenderizes, moistens, leavens, browns, and flavors.
What Is Reverse Creaming?
Reverse creaming is when you combine the dry ingredients with softened butter, and then the liquid ingredients are mixed in after. In the reverse creaming method the butter coats the flour particles which minimizes gluten development, creating a fine and tender crumb. Plus, since the butter isn’t beaten with sugar, less air is incorporated, which creates a sturdier cake with less rise.
How To Make Lemon Curd
- In a medium sized saucepan, whisk together the eggs, sugar, salt, lemon juice and zest.
- Over low heat, whisk constantly for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken.
- Remove the curd from the heat and stir in the butter. Strain the curd through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl to remove any solids that may have formed while cooking. Place a piece of plastic wrap on the surface of the curd and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.
Fluffy Lemon Frosting
I typically use Swiss meringue buttercream but on occasion I want to use something that’s quick, easy and good! This fluffy lemon frosting is perfect because it’s easy to make and light and creamy thanks to the heavy cream. TIP: Be sure to sift the powered sugar before adding it to your mixer bowl for a silky-smooth frosting.
TIP: Fresh lemon zest in this frosting is optional. Sometimes when smoothing the frosting onto the cake it can get caught on your cake scraper and leave marks on your cakes final coat of frosting. If this doesn’t bother you, I recommend keeping it in there. But, if you don’t want to mess with it you can leave it out.
Assembly Tips
- Always use a frosting dam around your cakes edge to keep the filling from spilling out of the sides.
- To keep things nice and neat, fill a piping bag with frosting fitted with a coupler or a round piping tip and pipe the frosting dam onto the edge of the cake.
- When stacking the cake layers on top of each other make sure they are lined up as perfectly as possible.
- Apply a light coat of frosting on the top and sides of the cake to create a crumb coat.
- Chill the cake before applying the final coat of frosting.
- Line your acrylic disk with parchment paper. If you don’t have a disk, you can use a cake board of the same size.
- I use a piping bag to pipe the frosting onto the sides of the cake for the best coverage.
Watercolor Cake
What I love about the watercolor effect is that it’s different every time and that it’s perfectly imperfect! You can play around with this until you have the look you want. TIP: Be sure to have extra frosting of all colors used to add more dimension here and there, where ever you feel it needs it.
Watercolor Swirls
Once I have a look I like to combine all the remaining buttercreams to finish off the decorating process.
Lemon Layer Cake Baking Schedule
- Day 1: Make lemon curd.
- Day 2: Bake cake layers.
- Day 3: Prepare frosting, assemble and serve.
Baking and Cake Decorating Supplies
- 3 8-inch round cake pans
- Nonstick baking spray
- 4 cup liquid measuring cup
- Stand mixer
- 8-inch round cake board
- Cake turntable
- Piping bag
- Coupler
- Small offset spatula
- 8-inch round acrylic disk
- Yellow gel food color
- 2 fresh lemons for decorating
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Suggested Recipes
Lemon Layer Cake
Lemon layer cake baked with fresh lemon zest, filled with homemade lemon curd and covered with lemon watercolor frosting and fresh lemons.
Ingredients
- SPECIAL TOOLS
- 3 8-inch round cake pans
- Nonstick baking spray
- 4 cup liquid measuring cup
- Stand mixer
- 8-inch round cake board
- Cake turntable
- Piping bags
- Coupler
- Small offset spatula
- 8-inch round acrylic disk
- Yellow gel food color
- Ateco piping tip #827
- 2 fresh lemons for decorating
LEMON CAKE
- 1 cup (8 ounces) whole milk, at room temperature
- 6 large egg whites, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon emulsion
- 2 1/4 cups (9 ounces) cake flour
- 1 3/4 cup (12 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon sized pieces, at room temperature
LEMON CURD
- 3 whole eggs
- 3/4 cup (5.25 ounces) granulated sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon sized pieces
LEMON FROSTING
- 2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 6 1/2 cups (26 ounces) powdered sugar
Instructions
LEMON CAKE
- Adjust an oven rack to the center position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 3 8-inch round cake pans with nonstick baking spray and set aside.
- In a bowl or a 4 cup liquid measuring cup, whisk together milk, egg whites and lemon emulsion. In the bowl of a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment attached, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt on low speed until combined. Add butter one tablespoon at a time until the mixture forms pea-sized pieces, about 1 minute. Reserve ½ cup of the milk mixture and pour the remaining to the flour mixture and mix on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low and add the reserved ½ cup milk mixture to the batter and mix until combined, about 30 seconds. Do not over mix. The batter may look curdled. Give the batter a final stir by hand with a rubber spatula.
- Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and smooth tops with a rubber spatula. Gently tap cake pans on the counter to settle the batter and bake until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 20 to 25 minutes, switching and rotating pans halfway through baking.
- Let cakes cook in their pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Invert cakes on to wire racks to cool completely, about 2 hours.
LEMON CURD
- In a medium sized saucepan, whisk together the eggs, sugar, salt, lemon juice and zest.
- Over low heat, whisk constantly for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken.
- Remove the curd from the heat and stir in the butter. Strain the curd through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl to remove any solids that may have formed while cooking. Place a piece of plastic wrap on the surface of the curd and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.
LEMON FROSTING
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the butter, shortening and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 8 minutes. Add the heavy cream, lemon juice and zest and mix to combine. Place a large sieve on top of the mixer bowl and slowly add the powdered sugar, stirring with a spoon to push the sugar through the sieve.
- Beat on low speed for 1 minute, then increase the mixer speed to medium-high and beat until fluffy, about 6 minutes.
ASSEMBLE
- Center one cake layer on a 8 inch round cake board and set on top of a cake turntable. Fit a piping bag with a coupler or plain round tip and fill with about 1 cup frosting. Pipe a ring around the edge to create a frosting dam. Fill the dam with half of the lemon curd, spreading evenly with on offset spatula. Top with the second layer of cake and repeat. Place the last cake layer on top (bottom side up).
CRUMB COAT
- Apply a thin coat of frosting over the top and sides of the cake and chill in the freezer for 15 minutes, or in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
DECORATE
- Add a large dollop of buttercream on top and smooth it out with an offset cake spatula. There should be excess buttercream hanging over the edge. Line an acrylic disc with parchment paper and place disc down on top of the cake, gently pressing to adhere and lining up with the bottom cake board. Apply frosting over the side of the cake. Using a cake scraper, gently smooth the frosting by rotating the cake turntable. Fill in any gaps in the frosting and continue to smooth the with cake scraper until completely smooth. Place the cake in the freezer for 15 minutes, or in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before removing the acrylic disc.
- While the cake is chilling, reserve about 2 cups of frosting and divide into 2 bowls. Color one a bright yellow, and the other a light yellow.
- Add small dabs of the colored frostings around the sides of the cake. Hold the cake scraper so that it’s gently touching the side of the cake. Spin the cake turntable so that it rotates on full time around. Clean the cake scraper and repeat. Fill in any gaps with remaining frosting and continue to smooth until you have a watercolor effect.
- Carefully insert a small offset cake spatula under the acrylic disc and gently rotate the cake turntable until the disc releases. Peel off the parchment paper and smooth out the frosting if needed. Place remaining frosting into a piping bag fitted with piping tip #827. Pipe swirls of frosting on top of the cake and garnish with sliced lemons and serve.
Notes
Store cake layers in plastic wrap in an airtight cake container at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Lemon Curd will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Or in the freezer for 6 months.
Store the frosting in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Bring to room temperature and beat on low speed to soften before using.
Assembed cake will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 804Total Fat: 69gSaturated Fat: 38gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 27gCholesterol: 218mgSodium: 539mgCarbohydrates: 42gFiber: 2gSugar: 17gProtein: 9g
*Nutrition information is an estimate and will vary.*
Saumya Premchander
Thursday 25th of August 2016
I look forward to trying this out over the weekend. I like your approach of using real ingredients to make homemade deserts. I'm always trying to make things from scratch, and not using box mixes, because what's the point anyhow :)
Mary
Thursday 25th of August 2016
My thoughts exactly Saumya! Let me know how it turns out!