Lemony, moist, and utterly fantastic lemon cake with homemade lemon cream cheese frosting. You better like lemons for this recipe.
Lemons have an amazingly fresh and yummy flavor, and I love baked goods with lemons. I often make cakes with lemon, but I don’t know why I didn’t share any of the recipes with you. Maybe because none of the recipes were as good as this one. As I wrote above, this cake is for serious lemon lovers, because of every bite bursts with lemon flavor.
For this recipe I combined a few recipes I found on Allrecipes.com and tweaked it to my liking. The recipe calls for cake flour and for the cake to be soft and fluffy, cornstarch is essential. We do not have store-bought cake flour here in Croatia, so I make my own at home. And for a moist factor, I use greek yogurt or sour cream.
Lemons remind me of spring and summer sunny days. After really cold/freezing February (lowest temperature here was last week -20C), we finally have some spring temperatures and sunny weather here in Croatia, so I decided to share this recipe today.
Lemon Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups cake flour (see note 1)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 cup buttermik or milk
- 1/2 cup greek yogurt
- 170 grams butter (3/4 cup)room temperature
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
For the frosting:
- 240 grams 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 120 grams butter (1/2 cup, 4.2 oz) room temperature
- 1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Line 34x23 cm (13x9in) baking dish with parchment paper.
- In a bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Beat butter, sugar and lemon zest until fluffy, around 3 minutes, add eggs, one at the time, beating well after each egg. Add vanilla extract, lemon juice, and greek yogurt and beat until combined.
- Turn the mixer down to low speed, add flour mixture, and beat until combined. Add buttermilk and beat until incorporated.
- Pour batter into the prepared baking dish, and bake 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool completely before frosting.
Frosting:
- Beat cream cheese and butter until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes. On low-speed beat in powdered sugar (add more sugar if you like it sweet), lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla, and salt.
- Using a flat-edged knife frost the cooled cake.
Notes
Note 2. The recipe works well with milk if you don't have buttermilk. To make your own buttermilk, in 1/3 cup of milk add 2 teaspoons lemon juice and let stand for 5 minutes.
Note 3. I do not like my frosting overly sweet. And in all the recipes I cut down the sugar because I find all the frostings too sweet. Add more powdered sugar if you are a sweet tooth.
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