Amazing Lemon Cake Recipe

Hey , I'm John Connell .

And today on Preppy kitchen , we're making a luscious lemon cake .

So let's get started .

First off , set your up into 3 50 .

Get it nice and hot into a large bowl .

I'm adding 300 g or 2.5 cups of all purpose flour .

Perfect for a little contrast .

We want three quarters of a teaspoon of salt .

So wake our cake up 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder and half a teaspoon of baking soda .

The baking soda is gonna react with the acids from the lemon juice and the buttermilk coming later on and it's gonna give us a really light and fluffy cake whenever you have a baked good and it has some acid in it , you're gonna be using some baking soda .

So the acid gives you a lift .

The baking powder has it all built in .

So it doesn't need that whisk it up and we're gonna set this aside while we get our butter sugar , lemon situation happening .

Now we're going to add one cup or 226 g of room temperature , unsalted butter in and room temperature means that you can press into the butter and with a little bit of pressure , the butter will yield .

It's not falling apart in a pool and it's not really hard either .

Very important because the softness of the butter determines how it mixes in with everything else .

Cream it up on medium speed until it's like , all worked up into a nice paste .

Once it's nice and creamy , I'm gonna add 1.5 cups of sugar in .

It's 300 g .

Mm We're going to scrape this bowl down and then add the zest of about two lemons .

It's two tablespoons .

This is where a micro plane or a rasp come in so handy they get the skin off of any citrus fruit .

You can have beautiful clouds of cheese , freshly grated nutmeg .

The list goes on the skin of the lemon has so much oil in there and it's packed with flavor .

So adding the zest in is gonna give your cake a huge lift .

I grew up with lemon trees and this is one of the cakes we would love to make .

Played with a recipe that my mom had quite a bit and it's just super like full of zest .

It's light , it melts in your mouth and later on there's a lemon cream cheese frosting that you're going to love .

Now we're gonna mix this on medium for about five minutes until it is light and fluffier than can be while that's mixing .

You're gonna grab 28 inch pans .

I cut out some parchment circles .

This is optional , but it makes the cake remove foolproof , add some butter to the side place that parchment paper on and then add a little spoonful of flour and kick it around and repeat for the other pan .

Give these lemons a good roll .

So they get nice and juicy and we're going to strain these into a measuring cup .

We need about a quarter cup of fresh lemon juice .

And yes , for this cake , you would only use fresh , never that bottled stuff .

A quick scrape down .

My butter is light and fluffy .

Look at that and all of that lemon zest has really been like mashed into the sugar .

So it has so much flavor adding in three room temperature eggs in one at a time .

At this point , you might see the mixture break a bit , just scrape the bowl down one last time .

It's ok if it looks a little bit chunky , all the liquid from the eggs , it's just not gonna mix with the butter .

So it's gonna have a somewhat dimpled consistency .

It won't be like a nice cohesive mixture just a minute or so of mixing .

And I want to show you the consistency up close .

So it has a little bit of that dimpling , but it is pretty smooth .

And that's because our butter was the right temperature .

Now , for the fun part , we're going to combine one cup of buttermilk with our quarter cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice .

It's about two lemons , but you might need a little bit more .

Just give it a quick stir .

I'm adding in one tablespoon of vanilla .

Right now .

Here we go .

Now we're going to add the flour mixture and the milk mixture in a couple alternating batches while mixing on the lowest setting and I would mix until almost combined .

Not until it's just combined .

We can always finish it off by hand .

I said this before .

But over mixing your cake batter is one of your worst enemies in baking .

It's like that and mis measuring the flour too much flour and your cake is gonna be kind of like bready and just like tense dense bready cake .

Too much mixing and your cake batter is gonna contract after baking and be gummy and have like no melt in your mouth texture .

It'll be really bad just from over mixing .

All right .

So here I let it mix until it's almost combined .

There's a ton of flour streaks .

There's a lot of butter streaks , but I want to finish this off with my spatula .

It gives me the best control .

If I'm ever making something like whipped cream , I'll whip the cream with the machine for a bit and I'll finish it off my hand so I can be sure it won't curdle and get over mixed .

Just work .

All the flour in this mixture is so foamy right now because of all the acid and the lemon juice and the buttermilk reacting with the baking soda because it's ready to go into my two pans .

I'm gonna measure it out .

So it's nice .

And even I didn't mention this earlier , but adding acid into any cake batter is amazing because it gives you a tender cake .

That happens because the acid inhibits some of the uh gluten from forming and getting those like bready chewy buns in addition to reacting with the baking soda .

So there's like a lot of magic happening in this cake behind the scenes .

So it's like just over 600 g of batter per pan .

If you're measuring it out , use your spatula to level the batter out in the pan and then this is optional .

But if you want a very flat level cake with soft sides , you can apply cake strips to the pan before baking and cake strips are just wet fabric strips like a wet headband .

Basically that you pop on your cake and it cools everything down .

So it'll keep the edge nice and cool .

So it doesn't burn and everything rises together evenly .

It's one of the secrets to having a cake that's really easy to stack and decorate .

These are gonna bake at 3 50 for 35 to 40 minutes or until the center has a skewer that can come out clean or it's springy to the touch .

You'll also see the edge is just pulling away from the pan when it's done baking and you go while my cakes are cooling and they smell so good .

I wish that you were here .

Maybe you'll make this recipe .

We're gonna make a cream cheese , lemon frosting that is to die for .

So , pardon ?

The crinkles .

But I need eight ounces of softened cream cheese .

226 g , an equal amount of room temperature , unsalted butter .

If you watch this channel frequently , you'll know that one of my childhood snacks that I adored growing up was um , a cream cheese burrito .

Oh , so good .

Just a nice corn tortilla that you warmed up over a flame .

The big block of cream cheese in the middle , roll it up and enjoy .

Anyways , we're gonna cream up the cream cheese and butter .

Now , the cream cheese really had to be softened because if it was hard , you'd have little lumps of cream cheese and it just doesn't mix really well .

Let this run medium for a minute or two until it's all mixed up , scrape the bowl down as needed and you need to scrape it at least once .

So not only did I grow up with lemon trees , but my grandfather was from Greece .

So there is a strong desire to put lemon in everything .

My brother's wife actually makes fun of both of us because oftentimes instead of adding salt to something , we'll just like pour lemon juice in it .

So good .

All right .

This is nice .

You want to grab a big lemon or two small lemons as well as a rasp and now we're going to zest the whole lemon .

This is gonna give us a ton of amazing flavor and it also has little specks of sunshiny yellow throughout once the frosting is done .

Mm And honestly if you wanted to like just add more lemon zest , I'm not gonna be mad at you .

You do it let this mix for about three minutes on medium and it's going to get light and fluffy .

But you're also agitating all of the lemon zest and in doing so you're releasing the lemon oil and a ton of flavor .

So just give it some time in here .

You can do a dish or two or watch some preppy kitchen videos on tiktok youtube or whatever you like a few minutes later .

I just wanna show you the consistency because it really is so light and fluffy .

Look at this cloudy mixture of cream cheese butter and lemon zest .

It's so light and just amazing .

It's gonna be really great once we add in the rest of the ingredients , now we're gonna add in about seven cups of powdered sugar and you're gonna do this while the mixer is running on low , we're going to alternate the powdered sugar with a little bit of lemon juice .

So it will help everything mix together in total .

You'll use about two tablespoons of lemon juice .

Let it mix in .

They keep adding , let me know in the comments .

How much powdered sugar do you think I'll be spilling on the counter ?

I'm going for no powdered sugar spilled on the counter at all .

Ok .

A little bit more lemon juice , a little bit more powdered sugar and just repeat that process back and forth .

And when you get to the sixth cup , you can give it a taste and also take a look at the texture .

The powdered sugar is going to be giving the frosting some strength in body as well as some sweetness .

I'm gonna give this a scrape , add in my last little bit of lemon juice and then we're gonna give it a blessing of vanilla .

Just a half a teaspoon .

The moment of truth .

Hm .

That's so nice .

I was thinking about how I wanna decorate this cake .

So right now the plan is to reserve about a cup of frosting for dollops that should be good .

This gets set aside , but I think the cake would look pretty with a slight yellow tint .

So I'm gonna add one drop of this weak food coloring in and just give it a mix .

If you don't wanna use food coloring , you could use a little bit of turmeric .

My mom loves turmeric so it's nothing crazy .

It's just like a little hint of yellow .

Ok .

Now we're ready to assemble our cake , grab a cake plate and we're gonna carefully move these layers on .

They're very tender as the cake has a lot of melt in your mouth qualities .

First layers on .

I would add about a cup of frosting .

Give that a quick smooth .

This frosting is so like luscious and soft .

I love the London flavor .

Second layer goes on .

Now we're gonna add the remaining frosting .

Give it a good cover .

And for this cake , I don't really think that you need a crumb coat .

A crumb coat is where you just completely cover the cake at a paper thin layer of frosting .

You set the cake in the fridge and you let it set up and then you add a final layer and then that will basically protect any crumbs from coming off the cake , just adding all the frosting on top and we'll work it down .

My tools of choice here are the turntable so I can spin my cake , a bench scraper for the side and then an offset spatula for the top .

These tools will really help you decorate a cake with ease .

So it'll be easy .

Breezy .

No fuss , no muss .

Things only get frustrating if you don't have the right tools .

Now , we're gonna use our bench scraper and start spreading the frosting all around .

I always think that people who are uh cake decorators would make excellent plasters it from someone who's on home renovation projects and I actually have plastered a lot of things , OK ?

Just a final bit around the edge and now we're going to get rid of this ridge here by using our offset spatula and pulling in as I turn just like that .

Just make sure to wipe your spatula off in between swipes and a final little bit on the top to smooth it out .

Now we're gonna make this pretty with some dollops and a little bit of magic drop a piping tip in .

I'm using an 8 46 it's a larger closed star tip .

Fill it up with our reserve frosting .

I'm gonna do a little practice dollop .

You can always use a spatula or a plate or even your bowl just to get a feeling for how it looks before it's on the cake .

OK ?

Now , for the moment of truth , so dolt towards the edge 12 up .

Oh That's nice .

Do to the edge 12 and just keep going .

I don't want to go crazy , but we're gonna add a few really paper thin lemon slices just in between the dollops and one of our neighbors has this beautiful farm with fields of these tiny edible pansies .

I stopped by yesterday picked them up and I think they'd be perfect on this cake .

Just a smattering here and there .

And I will say you want to add the pansies just before serving because they won't last forever .

The frosting is soft and beyond luscious .

You might want to let your cake set up in the fridge for just a few minutes before cutting it because it will be soft but so delicious .

It's totally up to you bright ziggy .

The cake melts in your mouth .

The frosting is just like a heavenly cloud of lemony amazingness .

Oh my gosh .

My mouth is watering .

I hope you get a chance to make this recipe .

And if you like this video , check out my lemon playlist .