Amazing Lemon Cake Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell. And today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making a luscious lemon cake. So let's get started. First off, set your oven to 350 and we're gonna grease two eight-inch pans. Now in a medium bowl, add two and a half cups or 300 grams of all-purpose flour. If you've ever made a cake and you're like, oh, I followed the recipe, what went wrong? What went wrong might've been adding too much flour. If you scoop it up with a measuring cup, you're packing the flour in, mm-mm-mm. Use a scale or if you're using a measuring cup, sprinkle the flour in and level it off. Otherwise, too much flour will give you a dense, bready cake. To puff things up, half a teaspoon of baking soda and one and a half teaspoons of baking powder. The baking soda needs an acid to react to. Lemon is acidic. The baking powder will work on its own. And for some contrast, three quarters of a teaspoon of salt. Our scale is done, so grab a whisk and give it a good mix. Whisk, whisk, whisk. You wanna really distribute those leavening agents so everything rises evenly. I'm part Greek. Lemon is in my DNA. I use it on everything. In fact, usually for a savory, I'll just add lemon juice instead of salt. I can't even tell you how much I love this cake. It's just pure, sunny lemon flavor. Set this aside and grab your stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. By the way, if you like my videos, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes and shorts every single week. To the bowl of my stand mixer, I'm adding one cup or 226 grams of room temperature unsalted butter. And just to remind you, room temperature means I can press into the butter with my finger. It's not taking all of my strength, but the butter is not melting. If it's a cold day, go ahead and microwave the butter. 10 second bursts at half power until it's nice and soft. Cream the butter on medium speed for maybe 30 seconds to a minute. That looks great. I'm actually gonna use my scale for the next part. So, bringing that back. To sweeten and soften the cake, 300 grams or one and a half cups of granulated sugar. To maximize the lemon flavor, two tablespoons or the zest of about two lemons. This is so important and it's really the secret to any lemon dessert. The lemon oil in the skin has so much flavor and by using a rasp to get it off and mixing that in, especially with the sugar, you're gonna get a ton of flavor. The sugar's important because it acts like sandpaper and abrades the lemon zest and pushes all the oil out. If I was making lemon muffins, which is like a stir together recipe, I would just mix the zest and the sugar in a bowl and then work it together with my hands like this and I would press all the oil out. Because we're using a stand mixer today, that's gonna happen just as the sugar and butter get mixed. Oh my gosh, that smells so good. The mixer's gonna go back to work now so let's bring it over. We're gonna mix this on medium speed for about five minutes until it's light and fluffy and I would scrape the bowl down at least once. Halfway through the mixing, just scrape the bowl down. It's a best practice. You want everything nice and evenly mixed and already, that is a fluffy cloud and it smells like lemon, butter, and sugar, which is what it is, but so good. Back to mixing. Five minutes later, fluffy as could be. Still smells like lemon, sugar, and butter and it's still delicious. I'm tamping this down because it kind of crept up the bowl. Now, we're gonna add three eggs in one at a time. Number one, let the first egg mix in before you add the second one. Two. And scrape that down again. The egg is so much less dense than the butter and sugar that it just floats on top. It's always a good idea to scrape your paddle down as well. You'll find the denser stuff hanging out on the top. Last egg. My eggs are mixed in, but my lemon cake needs some lemon juice as well, a quarter of a cup to be precise. And of course, we're gonna use fresh juice. Lemon juice is a strong acid, as far as things you eat goes, and the acid prevents the gluten in the flour from connecting, basically, which gives you a more tender cake. But if you add too much acid, it changes the texture and your cake ends up being kind of gummy. So, it's a delicate balance between adding delicious lemon flavor and changing the consistency of your cake. That's exactly a quarter of a cup. For added tang and tenderness, I'm using a cup of buttermilk, and we are going to combine the lemon juice and the buttermilk together. No seeds, please. Give that a stir. Now, we're gonna add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with our lemony buttermilk, while mixing on low. A third of the flour, half of the buttermilk, another third of the flour, the remaining buttermilk, and the remaining flour. This is not done mixing, but I'm stopping the mixer because I'll finish it by hand. I almost forgot to add in one tablespoon of vanilla extract. This should have gone in with the buttermilk and the lemon juice, just mix that together. Now, we're gonna finish mixing this by hand. Scrape the bowl down, fold it together, and stop once you don't see any more streaks of flour. This looks great. Let's grab our pans. Crease your pans, and plop a sheet of parchment paper right in the center. This is your insurance policy that things will come out perfectly. Distribute the batter evenly between the two pans. You can weigh the pans if you wanna see how even they are. Let's go. And level them out so they have a nice, even bake. We're gonna stack these layers, so you don't want the cake layers to dome, which means you might want to use a cake strip for this. Cake strips are just wet or damp fabric strips that you wrap around the edge of a cake. It insulates the side so that it rises up evenly instead of baking first while the center rises, causing a dome. Wrap them around the edge, tighten them up, and we're ready to bake. My cake layers will bake for 35 to 40 minutes at 350, or until the centers are set. You can use a skewer or press gently to see if it springs back. In you go. My cake layers have just about cooled, so it's time to make a delicious, luscious lemon frosting. Start off with eight ounces or 226 grams of softened cream cheese. Notice it's not ice cold, it's nice and soft, so plop that in, it'll mix lovely. I also want 226 grams or one cup of softened unsalted butter. Pop your paddle attachment on. We're gonna mix this up on medium for maybe 30 seconds. Once this is creamy and well combined, we're gonna add lemon zest. Just adding zest gives you so much flavor. If you want, and I think I do want today, I'm gonna add the zest of two lemons instead of one. If you did a swoopy, rustic cake, you'll see all those little bits of lemon zest coming through. You don't have to add any food coloring, it'll be natural and beautiful. Grab all that flavor off the lemon. My mother-in-law calls these naked lemons. Tap that in. An optional pinch of salt never hurt anybody. Little bit of balance. We're gonna mix this up on medium for about three minutes until it is nice and light and fluffy. This is also gonna agitate or abrade all that lemon zest to get the flavor out. You wanna express the oils of the lemon zest, so your cake's gonna be delicious. While that mixes, you can measure out seven cups or about one pound of confectioner's sugar. If your sugar has lumps in it, give it a sift. If not, it's good to go. After three minutes, you'll see it's really light and fluffy, it's even changed color. Now, while the mixer runs on low, we're gonna add in sugar about a spoonful at a time. Well, it's about half a cup at a time. As we add the sugar in, you wanna add a little bit of liquid so the mixture is smooth and slack and melts in your mouth really easily. You'd normally add cream or milk, but today we're gonna add lemon juice for more lemon flavor. At about the halfway mark, it's time to scrape the bowl down. Back to mixing. Gonna add a little bit more lemon juice in now. If you want, you can measure this out exactly and have exactly two tablespoons, but it's really to eye and to taste. So how does the frosting look and feel and how lemony do you want it? If you want to have a thicker or more slack frosting, less lemon flavor or more, just add the lemon juice accordingly. The last bit goes in. A little more lemon juice. Everything's been combined, so we're gonna increase speed to medium low and beat this for about a minute until it's nice and fluffy. In the meantime, grab your favorite cake plate and we're gonna get to work. All mixed up. If you're making a rustic cake, this can get slapped right on and swooshed up. Today I wanted to have one that looked like the one on the blog. It has a pale, pale yellow buttercream with white dollops and beautiful edible violas all over. Very classic dainty cake. To do that, I just need to reserve like three quarters of a cup of frosting for the dollops. I'll be using a large closed star tip for my dollops. They'll look really pretty with a little shimmy. To get a pale yellow color, I'm using just like half a drop of yellow food coloring. Just wipe that on. If you don't want to use food coloring, a little bit of turmeric powder would work too. Give it a mix just for the color. If you want a deeper yellow, add more color. Gonna add the slightest bit of orange. Scrape the bowl down for even color. You probably can't tell right now on the camera, but this is the palest, most subtle yellow. Grab your first layer, plop it onto your cake plate, center it up. You wanna add about a cup of frosting right on top. And smooth it out into an even layer. If you feel like it, you could add some lemon curd in the middle, spread it over the cake layer itself, and or even just drizzle it for a little kick of extra lemon flavor. My second layer goes on. Paper away. And now we're gonna cover with the remaining frosting and smooth it out. Or if you're doing a rustic cake, get full coverage and swoop your heart out. If you haven't done a swoopy cake, you're just making little waves to get some depth. It's that easy. It gives the impression of a ton of frosting, even if you're using a normal amount. Work that onto the side of your cake. Get that side nice and tight. Clean the edge off by pulling in. Top your cake with some beautiful dollops. These are in contrasting natural white. If you give your piping tip a little shimmy, you get that nice ruffled effect. Optional finishing touches could be ribbons of lemon peel, edible flowers like violas, sprinkles, or you could just leave it plain. Your cake will last up to four days in the refrigerator, or you can freeze it, wrapping it really well, and it'll keep for up to three months. Just make sure you thaw it so it's completely room temperature before enjoying. Give it a slice, and just like that, it's ready to enjoy. Creamy, melt-in-your-mouth, full of lemon flavor, but it's not sharp. It's just the most beautiful, light cake. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe, and if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my lemon playlist.