LEMON CAKE WITH LEMON BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

As I’m not yet up and running on this new blog yet, I thought I would share some of my favorite posts from my past blogging endeavors while I formulate some new posts. I found this little gem of a recipe when I was baking out of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan a couple of years ago. There is a link to both the book and the recipe at the end of the post.

Originally Posted June 2009:
I'm going to be honest here. When I think of the Perfect Party Cake I do not think of lemon... I think chocolate and lots of it! But after making the cake this week, I might just make an exception...

Behold, the PERFECT PARTY CAKE.

HOW I DID IT:  I made the cake in two phases over the course of two days due to time restrictions.

Day 1: Cake Baking

Anything that starts with citrus (in this case lemon) sugar, has to be good. Just a little lemon zest massaged into the sugar and you have a whole new monster.

Add some egg whites, buttermilk, lemon extract, flour, baking powder, salt, and Voila!  Oowy, Goowey, Cake Batter!


Pour that into some prepared baking pans (I used 6 inch pans and halved the recipe, there's only one of me for gosh sakes!) and 30 minutes later you've got warm cakes cooling and the whole house smells like lemon.


I had to substitute regular all purpose flour for the cake flour cause I couldn't find it at the store. I used a tip I found online to convert regular flour to cake flour by adding 2 tbsp of cornstarch to every cup of flour. It is definitely worth it to make these cakes with the cake flour to get the lighter consistency. But the cakes baked up perfectly anyways. Don't they just look gorgeous?


Once cooled, I wrapped them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the refridge overnight.

Day 2: Frosting

The cake is frosted with a lemon butter cream with layers of raspberry jam on the inside. Sounds amazing, right?

The frosting begins by whipping together egg whites and sugar over a double boiler until hot. Then you whip them with a mixer until cool. The result...


what Dorie describes as "marshmallow cream" consistency. Shiny, smooth, and bright white.

Add some lemon juice, a couple sticks of butter, and you get the perfect lemon buttercream frosting.

The cake frosting was fairly simple. Cut both cakes in half and top each section with raspberry jam and some of the buttercream. The recipe did not make a huge amount of buttercream and I'm glad. If it had made more, I think I would have over-frosted the cake with it. A little goes a long way!

After covering the whole outside of the cake with the remaining buttercream, you then press sweetened, shredded coconut all over it.

And there you have it…the Perfect Party Cake.
This cake is light and lemony. The bright flavor of the raspberry jam offsets the richness of the buttercream perfectly.

The perfect party cake, even if it's not chocolate.

For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read mix, mix, stir, stir