Lemon Celebration Cake!
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A delicious, light & lemony sponge filled with a dash of lemon curd and a luscious lemon buttercream! The perfect lemon celebration cake!
Lemon celebration cake!
After posting the recipe for my Victoria sponge celebration cake, I figured it would be so much fun if I experimented on this and produced different flavours! When I asked on my Facebook and Instagram page recently if anyone had any suggestions, and to my joy many of you suggested a lemon celebration cake!
I feel a lemon flavour for a celebration cake is always a safe flavour as (usually!) everyone likes lemon! I also find its perfect for after dinner as the zesty and fresh lemon cleanses your mouth leaving a refreshing aftertaste.
Lemon
I adore lemon drizzle cake – but I decided to do a variation on this for a bit more show! (Don’t worry though, I still have my lemon drizzle loaf cake recipe also!) I also used my homemade lemon curd recipe for the filling – feel free to use shop bought, but making your own is so surprisingly easy!
This cake ended up being a hybrid of a Victoria sponge into something super lemony and heavenly – and its delicious. I posted my recipe for my lemon & poppyseed cake a while ago and had a big success with that one, so I hope you guys like this too!
Two layer cake
Unlike my Victoria sponge I decided to keep this as a 2 layer cake so that its easier for others to make if they only have two tins, and its easier to bake two anyway! Two layer cake, normal cake, sandwich cake – whatever you want to call it, its still delicious regardless!
I tend to think some people prefer a two layer cake as you can simply slather buttercream in the middle and on top and you are done – its the perfect cup of tea pairing! I love using these tins for my sponge cakes and also this angled spatula for spreading buttercream. On this occasion I piped the buttercream but the choice is yours!
Drizzle
The drizzle aspect of this cake makes the sponge SO moist and scrummy, and the buttercream gives it the light sweetness that is often craved with cake – delicious. You simply mix the lemon juice and caster sugar together to make a yummy drizzle, and drizzle over the sponges whilst they are still hot.
This on top of the zesty buttercream and curd drizzle topping, you get the lemon taste in every bite of cake and it is just DELICIOUS! Of course I had to add some themed yellow sprinkles to the bake but they dont have to be yellow and they completely optional anyway!
Lemon recipes
I love a lemon recipe and have a fair few of them on my blog, and I can tell you guys do too – for example my lemon drizzle cheesecake, lemon drizzle cupcakes, lemon bars, even my lemon and blueberry blondies!
I love baking with lemon – as you can tell! I find that lemon bakes along or with a combination of another flavour is the perfect alternative if someone doesn’t want a chocolate themed bake. Its also a preference of mine in the middle of summer as it hits the sweet craving perfectly! ENJOY!
Recipe updated May 2017
Lemon Celebration Cake!
Ingredients
Cake
- 350 g unsalted butter
- 350 g caster sugar
- 7 medium eggs
- 350 g self raising flour
- zest of 2 lemons
- 75 ml lemon juice
Drizzle
- 75 ml lemon juice
- 75 g caster sugar
Decoration
- 2-3 tbsp lemon curd
- 200 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 400 g icing sugar
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- spare lemon curd
Instructions
Cake
- Grease & line two 8"/20cm deep cake tins and preheat your oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan.
- Beat together the unsalted butter & caster sugar until smooth - this will take a couples of minutes!
- Once combined add the self raising flour, eggs, lemon zest and lemon juice and beat until combined - try not to over beat!
- Pour the mixture evenly into the two tins and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Drizzle
- Towards the end of baking - in a bowl, mix together your 75ml lemon juice and 75g caster sugar together.
- Once the cake is baked, drizzle this over the cakes, whilst still in the tin. Let the cakes cool fully.
Decoration
- Beat the unsalted butter for a couple of minutes using the whisk attachment with a stand mixer - doing this will make it nice and smooth!
- Once smooth, start gradually adding the icing sugar until it’s all fully mixed in.
- Add the lemon juice, and beat for about 5 minutes on a medium-high speed until super light and whipped.
- Pipe some buttercream in a circle round the edge of the top of your first sponge, and then add the lemon curd into the middle.
- Place the other cake on top, and pipe on the rest of the buttercream however you wish.
- Drizzle on some spare lemon curd, and add some sprinkles and enjoy!
Notes
- I updated this recipe in May 2017 - the original recipe was 250g of each ingredient, and 5 medium eggs, and the cake was baked for about 25 minutes.
- This cake will last in an airtight container for 3-4 days - probably longer as it has so much moisture.
- Or you can freeze it for up to 3 months
- The layers are thick so if you wanted a more raised cake simply slice the two sponges in to two and have a 4 layer cake!
- If you dont have any lemon juice for the decoration, use 2 tsp lemon extract instead.
- I use these 8" cake tins
- I use this medium 2D closed star piping tip
- I use these piping bags
ENJOY!
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J x
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Hey Jane, cake looks delicious 😋, I’m excited to bake it next week for my mums bday. What technique and piping nozzle did you use to achieve the look on the top. I’m not a very skilled piper so do you have any easier techniques I could use to decorate the top. (Yours looks very difficult).
I use a 2d closed star piping tip – it’s not as difficult as it looks, but you just need to make sure your buttercream is made correctly (butter, not a spread) and maybe practice onto a plate first!!
hi Jane love the sound of this cake but how would I make this into a coconut and lemon cake
I made this over the weekend and it is delicious! We particularly liked the lemon curd on it. Thanks for the recipe!
Ahh yay! So glad!! x
Hey! Another fab recipe!!! Could you split the same amount into three tins and just have thinner layers or would that ruin the recipe??
Ahh thank you! I usually make a 400g/8 egg mix for three layers, but this should be enough for the three if you want it! x
Hi Jane,
I’ve made this recipe a few times but I wanted to use it as a basis for a lemon drip cake with the lemon curd being used as the drip. I’m just wondering, is the lemon curd on its own sufficient for the drip? Or would I need to add something to it?
Thanks!
Hiya! So this will depend entirely on the lemon curd itself – I’ve used lemon curd before for a drip, and it sorta worked. I just mixed it in a bowl to loosen it somewhat and then used a piping bag. Alternatively, you could use a white chocolate drip and colour it yellow!
Hello Jane, I’m planning on making a smaller version of this cake with a 17cm cake tin rather than the 20cm, how would you adapt this and other recipes for this tin?
Thanks in advance x
Hey!! So I think that’s about a 6.5-7″ tin, so I would use about 4/5 of the recipe! Sounds weird, but this is the best website to look at – http://www.cakebaker1.co.uk/apps-for-bakers/baking-tin-size-conversion-calculator/
Hi Jane,
This cake looks amazing!
I am a complete cake making novice and would love to have a go at making this delicious looking lemon cake. Unfortunately, I only have a 9″ round silicone baking tin. How would I need to adjust the ingredients and cooking time to allow me to make one thick cake that could be cut in half to make a two layered cake?
Many thanks.
Hey! Thank you so much! Okay so I rarely bake in silicone cake tins in all honesty – but my guess would be that it would work, but it would be better to lower the temperature somewhat (to about 140c for a fan oven) and bake for longer to make sure the cake stays moist! Sometimes a deep 10″ cake can take up to two hours to bake at this temperature, but it’s worth it! x
Hi Jane,
I absolutely adore lemon cake so I’m really looking forward to try this. I’ve probably missed it but just wondering what size/depth of the tins you used for this?
Thank you 🙂
I always put my tin sizes in the first step of the method! These are 8″ cake tins! And just in general all cake tins I use happen to be at least 3″ deep x
Hi Jane, if I was to do this for a 3-tiered cake what would the quantities be? Thanks so much!
Easiest way is to add on another half of the recipe, and then bake into three tins!
Hi Jane.
I’m looking at making this next week, but wandered how much I would need to alter the recipe for a bigger tin? I used the conversion link from a previous post but it doesn’t actually bring up any new qtys!
Hiya – I’m not sure what you mean by the conversion link?
Hi,
What would the quantity of larges eggs be for this recipe as I have no medium eggs, only large?
Also would the buttercream work if I added lime juice instead to make it a lemon and lime flavoured cake? X
For this I would use 6 large – and yes you can indeed use lime!
Hi Jane,
This cake looks amazing!
I am planning on making it for a birthday but splitting the 2 deep layers in half to have 4 layers and have buttercream around the sides as well as on top and in between layers. How much icing sugar/ butter would I need to do this?
Thank you!
I would double the mix but be careful not to add too much liquid so it can hold up around the sides! x
Hello i love your cakes and would love to follow your lemon celebration cake recipe . .. only I can’t get hold of any self raising flour at the moment. I have heard you can add 1 tsp of baking powder to ever 150g of plain flour to create the same effect. Would this work okay with your recipe? Or is there something else you could recommend? Thanks 🙂
It’s 2 level tsps, per 150g of plain flour, whisked in before adding to a recipe!
Hi Jane,
I am looking to make a lemon cake similar to this one but I want to buttercream the outside of it. Would you recommend a lemon buttercream or just a normal one?
Thanks
I would generally recommend a plain buttercream without any liquid added so it’ll hold up – but you could easily add in lemon flavouring as there’s a lot less liquid that way!
Hi Jane, I love all your recipes but this just didn’t work for me! I followed the recipe word for word but instead of using 2 tins, I used 1 and thought I would split in half. It came out and it was so so flat and had not risen at all. It would have been impossible to cut in half. I had to them bake again so had to use all ingredients again to get another layer. Really disappointed 🙁
It’s because you did it in one tin. The recipe is designed for two. When baking a deep cake, I wouldn’t use the lemon juice in the sponge, I would bake at a lower temp, and it takes a much much longer time.
Hi Jane,
This sounds like a brilliant option for my Gran’s 95th birthday cake. I was going to add in some blueberries to the mix- do you think this would work?
Love reading your recipes, thank you!
Have a look at my lemon & blueberry cake and go from there! x