Lemon Celebration Cake
Most disappointing lemon cakes are disappointing for the same reason: the baker added lemon juice and hoped. Juice is mostly water and acid, and it fades in the oven. The flavour lives in the zest, and this recipe leans on it, with a light syrup afterwards to carry the brightness through.
- Prep time
- 25 minutes
- Bake time
- 30 to 35 minutes
- Total time
- About 2 hours including cooling
- Makes
- Two 20cm (8 inch) layers, about 12 to 16 slices
- Difficulty
- Beginner
Ingredients
- 300g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 300g caster sugar
- Finely grated zest of 4 unwaxed lemons
- 5 large eggs, at room temperature
- 300g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 3 tbsp whole milk
- For the syrup: 75ml lemon juice and 50g caster sugar
Equipment
- Two 20cm (8 inch) round cake tins
- Baking parchment
- Fine grater or microplane
- Digital kitchen scales
- Electric hand mixer or stand mixer
- Small pan for the syrup
- Pastry brush
- Wire cooling rack
Method
- Heat the oven to 160°C fan / 180°C conventional / gas mark 4. Grease two 20cm tins and line the bases.
- Rub the lemon zest into the caster sugar with your fingertips for a minute. The sugar will turn pale yellow and smell strongly of lemon: this releases the oils and is the single most useful step in the recipe.
- Beat the lemon sugar with the butter for 4 to 5 minutes until pale and light.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each.
- Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and fold gently until just combined.
- Fold in the lemon juice and milk.
- Divide between the tins and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until golden and springy and a skewer comes out clean.
- While the cakes bake, warm the syrup ingredients in a small pan until the sugar dissolves. Do not boil it down.
- As soon as the cakes come out, prick the tops all over with a skewer and brush the warm syrup over them while both are still warm.
Cooling
Leave the cakes in their tins to absorb the syrup for 15 minutes, then turn out and cool completely on a wire rack. The syrup needs that time in the tin, and the cake needs to be fully cold before any buttercream goes near it.
Storage
The syrup keeps this cake moist for longer than most: 3 days wrapped at room temperature, or 3 months in the freezer. Filled, keep it cool and eat within 3 days.
KKD baking tips
- Zest, not juice, is where lemon flavour comes from. Four lemons sounds a lot. It is not.
- Take the yellow only. The white pith underneath is where bitterness lives. Use a fine grater and stop as soon as you see white.
- Rub the zest into the sugar. Thirty seconds of work, and it changes the cake more than anything else you can do.
- Do not add more juice to make it more lemony. Past about 3 tablespoons the extra acid starts to curdle the batter and tighten the crumb. Use the syrup instead.
- Unwaxed lemons if you can. If you can only find waxed, scrub them in warm water first.
Common mistakes, and how to fix them
- Not lemony enough: not enough zest, or the zest went in without being rubbed into the sugar.
- Bitter: pith in the zest, or too much colouring-free lemon extract if you added any.
- Curdled batter: cold eggs, or too much juice added at once.
- Soggy bottom: too much syrup, or it all went on one spot. Brush it evenly.
Serving suggestions
Beautiful with Basic Vanilla Buttercream and a little extra zest folded through it, and with fresh raspberries between the layers.