This Lemon Cake Recipe is so luscious and fluffy. It’s the perfect lemon cake full of lemon flavor, and you are going to love it!
Lemon is one of our absolutely favorite things to add to dessert. Mix it with chocolate, add it to a pie or a cake, or find any excuse you can to experiment with lemon desserts. That zing of the lemon mixed with the sweetness in the cake makes for the most mouth-watering dessert. It’s also one that most people wouldn’t expect you to bring to a party or family gathering. We all know that chocolate and white cake are the typical stars — maybe even carrot cake. But lemon cake? No, lemon cake is deemed far too fancy and decadent for someone to actually make from scratch. Yet here we are, always showing up to parties to wow everyone with lemon cake. This one will wow you too!
Do I have to use buttermilk in this recipe?
The buttermilk in this recipe interacts with the baking powder to create a fluffier cake. If you do not have buttermilk, you can easily make a buttermilk substitute.
Frosting:
This lemon cake recipe uses a cream cheese frosting. If you do not like cream cheese frosting or cannot find cream cheese, you can replace the cream cheese with butter which will create a buttercream frosting.
Can Luscious Lemon Cake be made into a 2 layer cake?
Yes, this recipe is designed for either a 3 layer cake with thin layers, or a 2 layer cake with thicker layers without making any adjustments to the ingredients in this recipe. For a 2 layer cake, add 5 to 10 minutes to the baking time.
How to Frost a Layered Cake:
The easiest way to frost a layered cake is to transfer all of your frosting to plastic piping bags. Place the empty piping bags into a tall glass to make it easier to transfer the frosting. You don’t need to use a piping tip, simply snip off the bottom. Squeeze the frosting in a spiral on top of each layer of cake, then use a knife to spread it out in an even layer. Once all layers are assembled, you can squeeze the remaining frosting around the outside of the cake as well and smooth it out.
Storage Instructions:
Due to the cream cheese frosting, you will need to store this cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in some of our other delicious cake recipes:
Watch the video below where we will walk you through every step of the recipe with a video demonstration.
Hey Rachel, I love your chocolate cake and i was excited when I saw you have a lemon cake recipe too. Just one question, can I substitute the egged with curd or buttermilk??? I need to bake the cake tonight for my daughters birthday tomorrow, please confirm
I made this cake over the weekend for the birthday dinner for my mom–who loves all things lemon! It was soft and delicious! I baked mine for 30 minutes,. I actually took a risk and put the third cake pan on the rack below the other two, and they all cooked evenly! (But I guess try this at your own risk?) The color of the exterior of the cake as well as the interior was very light. (It looked like a true white cake.) Like Rachel suggested, I also added a little yellow food coloring to the icing….it was the perfect touch!
I also attempted Rachel’s wavy design…mine was not as pretty, but I thought it was much better than competing against the perpetual humidity that is my kitchen and painstakingly trying to ice a cake.
One thing I will do differently for next time: I will run a knife through the batter of each of the prepared pans before popping them in the oven. I always forget to do this and every time, my cake has some holes in them. Not a deal breaker and does not impact the structure of the cake, but I think it would have looked nicer had I remembered.
All in all, success! My sister requested this for her birthday next month. Since her favorite color is pink, I think I might add a little pink food coloring to the icing this time for a “pink lemonade” feel! 🙂
Thanks for another go-to recipe, Rachel!
Nicole
The icing turned out amazing! I used an extra tsp of lemon juice and lemon zest. Not sure what happened to my cake but it turned out dry and crumbly. I used cake and pastry flour instead of all purpose not sure if that made a difference. Also I over baked the cake I would love some pointers on what I did wrong..
Unfortunately cake flour and pastry flour are different enough that it definitely impacts the recipe in a negative way. Using all purpose flour will yield a better result.
This cake turned out wonderfully. I added a few blackberries from my backyard in between the layers. The last few lemon recipes I made, the cake came out VERY dense. This one came out lighter, exactly how I wanted it. The frosting is the kind of frosting that makes you dance around your kitchen goin, “Mmm mmm mm!” after you dip your finger in for a taste.
Thanks for the recipe.
My cake came out very heavy and dense also
Even though extremely delicious.
Can you tell me what you did different to make it not so dense and not so heavy?
Hi. Did you get a reply to this? Mine also came out very dense 😛 Didn’t rise at all either.
I haven’t made THIS recipe, but, I just made a lemon cake a few days ago that is VERY similar to this recipe and it was divine! The author of that recipe INSISTS that you ONLY use CAKE flour and NOT regular flour or else it will be ruined. Another difference I noticed was that this recipe uses buttermilk AND lemon juice while the recipe I have uses heavy whipping cream and lemon juice (which essentially makes buttermilk). So, maybe adding lemon juice to the buttermilk is too much?? I would try using cake flour and heavy cream & lemon juice to see if those two changes makes a difference.
It comes out super light and the frosting in the recipe I have is a lemon butter cream meringue which is AMAZINGLY light and very delicious!
I made this recipe, but I substituted milk and lemon juice for the buttermilk, and used partially pastry flour. The cake turned out nicely, though it still didn’t rise particularly well.
This cake is amazing!!!! We have dairy protein allergies in our family, so I substituted Earth Balance’s dairy-free, soy-free butter for the regular butter and made my buttermilk out of So Delicious coconut milk with 1.5 Tablespoons of vinegar added. Also made the butter substitute in the icing. It was scrumptious!!!!
This cake recipe is incredible!!! I was searching for a lemon cake and tried another website’s recipe that I was disappointed in. Then I remembered that your chocolate cake recipe is my absolute favorite so I decided to search and see if you had a lemon cake one I could try for my daughter’s birthday. And thank goodness you did. It was so delicious! I’ve made it twice now and have gotten rave reviews! Thank you for another dynamite recipe!
Thank you for your great videos and recipes. love your chocolate cake! Today, I’m making your Lemon Cake. In the future, I’d like to use 6″ X 2″ round pans for a smaller cake. Can I just cut the recipe in half?
You can use any size of pans you’d like. You’ll just have to be sure to not overfill it and adjust the baking time.
Can I use unsalted butter?
Yes you can.
For some ingredients, you listed different amounts in the video and in the written recipe. Like the buttermilk, you said 1 and 1/2 cups in the video amd you wrote 1 and 1/4 cups in the recipe, so also for the frosting, there are differences….i got confused because i want to male your exact recipe(the best one) and i don’t know what to follow
Can I make cupcakes instead? I don’t like making layer cakes. Way too much work. Thanks
Yes, you should end up with about 24 cupcakes.
At 350 degrees also for 20-22minutes ? Or at 325 just like your other cupcake recipes?
I would do 325.
Thank you so much!!! Your batters are absolutely wonderful, a huge hit when I make them!