Lemon Layer Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Buttercream
This is the only Lemon Layer Cake recipe you need!! Not only is it moist and loaded with fresh lemon flavor, but it’s frosted with a delicious creamy lemon buttercream frosting. This cake is a lemon lover’s dream and is perfect for any special occasion!
It’s certainly no secret that I love lemon desserts and it’s very evident by the many lemon desserts I post, but I can’t seem to help myself. I love everything lemon!
Last year I posted my Lemon Chiffon Layer Cake, a delicious and light cake, with a texture more like a sponge cake. The year 2021…what? I haven’t posted a recipe for a regular Lemon Layer Cake? What’s wrong with me? With that being said, I decided it was high time to make one!
I actually experimented with this recipe twice before getting the perfect texture, flavor, and moistness I was looking for, and I was extremely happy with the end results!
So…if you want to make a perfect moist & tender lemon cake with an absolutely perfect lemon flavor, don’t worry I’ve got you covered. I’ve already done all the recipe testing for you. All you have to do is make it.
HERE’S WHAT MAKES THIS LEMON CAKE PERFECT…
CAKE FLOUR: I tested all-purpose flour in this cake first. I sifted it, then measured it. It just wasn’t giving me the fluffy or soft texture I was looking for. For the second test, I used cake flour that I sifted before measuring. Big difference in the softness and fluffiness! This recipe calls for “sifted” cake flour. This means to sift the flour before measuring it. Alternately, if the word “sifted” follows the word flour, it means to measure the flour, then sift it. This is important to know. If you were to measure the flour first, then sift it in this recipe, you would end up using too much flour, thus resulting in a drier cake. I used all-purpose flour in my Moist & Tangy Lemon Loaf Cake because I wanted a more dense texture.
BUTTER: I used butter for the pure buttery flavor, and it helps to aerate and tenderize the cake.
BUTTERMILK: I used buttermilk in this cake for several reasons. Using buttermilk results in cakes that have a lighter texture and a finer crumb. It also adds a bit of tanginess.
OIL: I used part oil, versus all butter. Butter adds structure and flavor, but too much butter lends a more dense texture, sort of like pound cake. The oil adds moisture and creates less density.
EGGS: I used 4 eggs in this cake. The protein & water in eggs helps the cake hold its shape. The eggs are a binding agent that holds everything together. Think structure! But that’s not all. They offer moisture too.
BAKING POWDER: I used 2 teaspoons of baking powder for leavening to make the layers rise up tall and fluffy. I didn’t want a dense cake such as poundcake here, I wanted tall and fluffy!
BAKING SODA: I used baking soda as a leavening agent also. However, I only used 1/2 teaspoon, since I was using buttermilk. A general rule of thumb is for every 1 cup of buttermilk, only use 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.
LEMON JUICE & ZEST: Baked lemon desserts seem to lose some of their lemon flavor once baked. In this recipe, I used the zest of 2 lemons, 1/4 cup of pure freshly squeezed lemon juice and I added 1 teaspoon of pure lemon extract, the second time I tested the recipe and finally got the perfect lemony tangy flavor I wanted.
LEMON CREAM CHEESE BUTTERCREAM
Talk about a velvety smooth frosting!! This frosting makes enough to generously frost the cake. Here’s what goes into this delicious tangy frosting!
- 2 8 ounce blocks of cream cheese
- 2 sticks of butter
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest
- Pinch of salt
- 6 1/2 to 7 cups powdered sugar
CANDIED LEMON SLICES (optional)
This step is optional, but I just couldn’t resist. I ended up with several leftover lemons, so I thought it would be fun to candy a couple of them and use them to garnish the cake. It’s super easy!
Here’s how to candy the lemons…
- Make an ice bath and set it aside.
- Slice 1 large lemon into very thin slices. Discard the seeds and rind ends. I used a mandoline, but you can use a sharp knife.
- Bring a medium pan of water to a bubbling boil. Remove the pan from the heat, add the lemon slices and stir until they become softened, about 1 minute. Drain, and immediately plunge the slices into the ice-water bath, then drain.
- Add 1 cup each of sugar and water to a large shallow skillet. Bring to a boil, swirling the skillet to dissolve the sugar. Once sugar is dissolved, reduce the heat to medium-low and add the lemon slices in one single layer. Simmer (do not boil), for approximately 1 hour until the rinds are translucent.
- Gently remove the slices with tongs and transfer them to a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Allow them to sit until they are no longer sticky, at least 1 hour. They will still be a little tacky. Use them or cover them for up to one day.
CHECK OUT MORE DELICIOUS LEMON DESSERTS…
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PrintLemon Layer Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Buttercream
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Description
This triple-layer lemon cake is made from scratch with lots of fresh lemon flavor. It’s moist and delicious and the tangy/sweet lemon cream cheese frosting totally complements it.
Ingredients
CAKE
- 3 cups sifted cake flour, spooned and leveled (Sift the cake flour before measuring)
- 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Zest of 2 lemons
- 3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) butter, unsalted, and softened
- 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups full-fat buttermilk, room temperature
- 1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, (not from a bottle)
- 1 teaspoon pure lemon extract
LEMON CREAM CHEESE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
- 2 8–ounce blocks of softened cream cheese, (not fat-free)
- 1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon zest
- Pinch of salt
- 6 1/2 to 7 cups powdered sugar
- Candied lemon slices, optional (See notes above this recipe on how to candy lemon slices)
Instructions
CAKE
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour three 8 x 2 inch round cake pans. Make sure to tap the pans and shake out any excess flour.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest. Set aside.
- Add the butter to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, (or use a hand mixer). Mix on medium-high speed until it becomes very light and smooth. Add the sugar and mix on medium speed for about 3 to 4 minutes until the mixture is very light and smooth. It should be paler in color and there should be no grainy granules of sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing just to incorporate each time, and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add the oil, lemon juice, and lemon extract and mix to incorporate.
- Add the dry ingredients and buttermilk in three additions on medium-low speed, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix only to incorporate. Do not overmix!
- Divide the batter equally between the 3 prepared cake pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out with slightly moist crumbs on it. Allow cakes to cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges and gently shake each pan to ensure the cake is loose from the pan. Invert cake layers onto a wire rack to completely cool.
LEMON CREAM CHEESE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
- Make the frosting: Make sure the cream cheese is very soft. Add the cream cheese to a large mixing bowl. I prefer to use the whisk attachment for cream cheese, but you don’t have to. Beat the cream cheese on medium speed until it’s very smooth and there are no lumps. Add the butter and beat until the mixture is very smooth and light about 2 minutes. Add the lemon juice, zest, and salt and mix to incorporate.
- Add the powdered sugar on low speed, 2 cups at a time, mixing the sugar in thoroughly before adding more. If the frosting seems a little too thin for spreading, add a bit more sugar. If it seems a little too thick for spreading, add a tiny bit of milk or lemon juice, adding only 1 teaspoon at a time.
- Assemble & frost: If you want perfect flat layers, use a serrated knife and slice the dome top off of each cake layer. I did not. Place one cake layer on a cake plate or a turntable. Spread about 1 1/4 cups of frosting over the layer. Add the second layer and spread 1 1/4 cups of frosting. Add the top layer and spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides. it.
- To serve: For nice neat slices, chill the cake for about 1 hour before slicing. Use a long sharp knife to slice the cake. Dip the knife in a tall glass of hot water before each cut and wipe the knife dry, then wipe the knife clean after each cut. This way the frosting will not stick to the knife and will look perfect on each slice of cake.
- Cover tightly and refrigerate the leftover cake for no more than 4 days for best freshness.
Notes
- Measuring the flour: This recipe calls for sifted cake flour. This means to sift the flour first, then measure it.
- Freezing the cake: The cake layers can be baked and frozen up to 3 months in advance. Bake the cake layers and allow them to cool completely. Wrap each layer tightly with plastic wrap. Do this twice. Then wrap each layer with a layer of heavy-duty foil. If you’re not sure when you’re going to use the layers, use a marker and write the date on the foil of when you froze it. When ready to use, thaw the cake layers overnight in the refrigerator.
- Freezing the frosting: I don’t recommend freezing the frosting. You can make the frosting a day or two in advance and bring it to room temperature before spreading it on the cake.
- Cake pans: This cake can also be made in two 9-inch round cake pans. The bake time will be a few minutes longer. I don’t advise using three 9-inch pans or the cake layers will be rather thin. I also don’t recommend using a 9 x 13 pan for this cake. There’s quite a bit of batter, and the cake may not be done in the center when the rest of the cake is done.
- Cupcakes: I have not made cupcakes with this recipe, but it should easily make 24 cupcakes, maybe more with plenty of frosting.
Hi. Nice recipe and willing to try. Love ur creations as I just came across your page. Can you please explain what you mean by a stick of butter?
Thank you
Hi Elo, Butter usually comes in a box containing 4 individually wrapped sticks of butter. Each stick is equal to 1/2 cup or 4 ounces.
Would you be willing to give metric measurements for everything? I find I can make a cake more properly with those measurements due to how differently people measure flour.
It would be really helpful to give the measurements by weight.
My boyfriend made this cake yesterday for a family gathering. It was a complete hit! It is the perfect summer cake! Everyone loved it! The lemon flavor was perfect and not overpowering and the cream cheese buttercream frosting is a perfect compliment to the cake. The cake is not overly sweet which was fantastic! It was simply delicious! We are adding the recipe to our repertoire.
Hi Emily, Thank you so much for the feedback! I’m so glad it was a hit!! 🙂
Hi! I would like to make this cake for my birthday this Friday. Could you tell me what size of lemons you used for the zest or approximately how many teaspoons the lemon zest you added yielded? I find that lemons can vary quite a bit in size and have had problems of having too much lemon zest in a recipe based on the size of the lemon used. I would greatly appreciate any information you could give me. Thank you!
Hi Danielle, I used the zest of two rather large lemons. If you use 1 1/2 teaspoons, that should be plenty for the lemon flavor to shine through.
Hi! I am unable to eat lemon zest . Can this recipe be made without it and if so , should I add more lemon juice or extract ? Thank you
Hi Anne, Yes you can certainly omit the zest and add some lemon extract. You can add lemon juice but you would need quite a bit more of juice.
I don’t see where you add the buttermilk
Hi Teri, It’s in step #5.
Step #5 says to add the buttermilk mixture, but nothing has been mixed with the buttermilk in the previous steps. Does it mean to add the buttermilk TO the mixture?
Hi Linda, Yes, it’s simply buttermilk. I will remove the word mixture to clarify. Thanks for the feedback.
Hi I love everything lemon and this looks delicious,can you please tell me mesumeants in ounce or grams as would love to make this .Thank you Christine
Hi Christine, If you look on the recipe across from the ingredients, you see where you can click on metric.
Hi there! Planning on making this. Should the buttermilk be room temp or no cause it’s not notated. Just wanted to double check on that one. Thank you!
Hi Gina, It’s best to use room temperature like the eggs. I’ll make a note on the recipe. Happy baking!! 🙂
Hello
Would you be able to tell me how to scale this back to a 2 layer cake with 6 inch cake pans ? What fraction of ingredients to use and bake time ?
Hi Barbara, This cake would easily fill four 6-inch cake pans. I recommend cutting the ingredients in half for two 6-inch cake pans.
Would you be able to suggest a cake flour pls
Hi Sonia, I use Swans, because that’s the only one available at my local grocery store, but any cake flour will work.
Can I add blueberries to make it a lemon blueberry cake?
Hi Melissa,
You sure can. You might want to check out my recipe for Lemon Blueberry Cake.
I made this recipe last night and it was amazing !!!!!!!! I used the ingredients exactly as the recipe calls for except I used only about 5 cups of confectioners sugar for the frosting because I ran out however, the frosting was still delicious. I received so many compliments at the dinner party and people were asking for the recipe.
Hi Marisol, YAY! I’m so glad it was a hit. I get friends who are die hard lemon haters to like this recipe. Thank you so much for the feedback! 🙂
Hi Cindy, I really love the look of this recipe so when I was scouring the internet to find a lemon layer cake to make I ultimately settled on yours. I love that you’re using both butter and oil as I agree that butter only cake can tend toward heavy and dry. I also love that your recipe contains more egg most. I think that will increase richness and mouthfeel.
I have volume vs weight questions I really hope you won’t mind answering.
First, is your unit converter a web plug-in or are you converting the numbers yourself? Because for the cake flour your recipe calls for 3 cups sifted. When converted to grams it comes out to 411. I’ve weighed different flours many times to try and solve this conversion issue and I’ve always gotten sifted cake flour to come out around 112g per cup. Rose Levy Beranbaum puts it at 114g. Going with the latter number I’d need 342g. Using 411g is a huge difference.
Secondly, the buttermilk. Your site’s conversion is 356g while mine would be 302g. Also a huge difference. Though to be fair I only had standard low fat buttermilk on hand to weigh and I was planning on trying to find full-fat buttermilk to make the recipe with. That’s a tough find, by the way, as it’s not the natural way buttermilk is made. If I can’t find it, what do you recommend? Greek yogurt or sour cream? And what weight?
The other ingredients have converted within an acceptable margin of error.
What do you think?? For the way you’ve constructed your recipe should I go with your website’s conversions or the ones I have?
Thank you so, so much for your time!
Hi Jeynie, I use a plugin. However, it appears it’s not working correctly. When you look at the “scale” to the right of “metric”, I’m assuming you have that set on “1”. However, the metric isn’t even working for me right now. I’ll have to check into it. I would go with your conversion numbers. If you have low fat buttermilk that will work. You can melt 1 tablespoon of butter into your buttermilk. If not, yogurt or sour cream will work…just no butterfat. Sorry about the metric conversion table. I’ll look into that. Please let me know how it turns out for you. This lemon cake is one of my favorites, but I do love everything lemon. 🙂
Thanks so much for the reply!
Yeah, these plugins are probably all over the map — I always do metric conversions by hand with any recipe I find because unless the recipe creator did it themselves, and I never know who did and who didn’t, then I doubt the programmer took into account the weights of all the various ingredients.
I didn’t quite understand what you meant when using the substitution for low-fat buttermilk. What did you mean “just no butterfat”?
I’m planning on making your cake tomorrow as a 2-layer 6″. I’m going to cut the recipe in half and see how that works out. I made some lemon curd and thought I’d spread a thin layer over the middle. Or maybe just mix the curd with the frosting. Got any advice there? I’ve never used curd as a middle layer before.
Hi Cindy. I made your cake yesterday and it turn out great! The recipe was wonderful — it had a delicate lemon flavor and rich texture. The curd in the middle was just the ticket for punch-you-in-the-face lemon.
Just FYI for anyone reading this, I used a pair of 6″ rounds and with baking strips needed about 35 minutes to get the cakes to 200 degrees. It was a teeny bit underbaked (it wasn’t an issue but the crumb structure was a bit tight, particularly near the bottom). Next time I’ll bring them up to 203-204 as see what I get.
Thanks, Cindy, for a fantastic recipe! 10/10