Lemon and Raspberry Cake!
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A three-layer lemon and raspberry cake with a lemon and raspberry sponge, lemon buttercream frosting and more!
Lemon and raspberry
Can we start this blog post off by appreciating how light and delicious a flavour this cake sounds. Lemon and Raspberry together is sweet, tangy and fruity – and it’s hard to beat. I love a lemon cake, I love a raspberry bake.. combine them? Heaven.
White chocolate and raspberry together is also an epic combination. But I know that not all of you like to bake using chocolate, and lemon and raspberry together is just as good. Honestly, I can never get over how light and fruity it is!
My Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake was my main inspiration for this bake – as I just adore it. It almost feels healthier as it’s got two types of fruit in – but don’t kid yourself.. it’s still a cake full of all the sugary goodness.
Lemon and raspberry cake
I decided originally for this one to do a two layer cake as some of you have requested some more two layers, but genuinely completely forgot until I had baked my first three layer version. I fell in love with the three layer version and it stuck… It’s a sponge that you can easily adapt into more layers if you wanted, or create only two layers – it’s definitely adaptable and that’s the good bit. You can find the notes below on a two layer version!
My lemon & raspberry cupcakes are so moist and light, that this cake version is such a showstopping cake version of the cupcakes you will adore it, but you can obviously have a go at the cupcakes if you wish instead.
Sponge
This sponge is light, it’s easy to mix together and I utterly adore it. It’s a standard cake mixture of butter and sugar beaten together until light and fluffy, and then you mix in the eggs and flour. I mix in the lemon zest, and then fold through the raspberries and split that between the cake tins.
- Butter – I use either a room temperature block butter or baking spread for a cake sponge
- Sugar – I use caster sugar in this cake, but golden caster sugar would work well as well
- Flour – self raising flour as always. However, if you don’t have it, you can make your own with 2 level tsps per 150g of plain flour, mixed in before using and removing any other raising agent in the recipe.
- Eggs – 7-8 medium eggs, but weigh in the shells and try and get as close to 400g as possible and match the butter, sugar and flour to this weight
- Lemon – I use the zest of lemons, but as mentioned above you can use lemon extract
- Raspberries – I use fresh raspberries because they’re the best
Buttercream
For the buttercream I was originally just got to do a lemon and raspberry frosting to make it easier, but I decided to make a lemon one because adding in the raspberries just wasn’t my vibe that day. However, you can easily add some in and slather the buttercream on!
If you mix it too much, you will just get a pink frosting – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! I find if I make the frosting mostly by the mixer, and then swirl the raspberries in by hand it works the best. However, just lemon is easy!
I piped my buttercream on as you can see, but it really doesn’t matter – you can slather, you can pipe, you can dollop, you can whatever you actually fancy. I find the freeze dried raspberries give a beautiful colour on the top anyway and would easily cover any mistakes!
The filling & decoration
I did decided to add a little raspberry jam into the middle, but the good thing about this bake is that you can easily use lemon curd in the middle instead if you wished. I would have used a little of both, but I didn’t have any lemon curd in at the time of baking; both work really well.
For the decoration I just went down the usual route of fresh raspberries, and freeze dried raspberries. I know, I know… I am obsessed with them. I can’t help it – they just look so beautiful on a bake, and when you ‘bulk’ buy them like I do, they’re much cheaper in the long run!
I used these large piping bags as I find them strong, easy to control when piping, and I used this beautiful 2d closed star piping tip for the decoration as I adore it’s look.
Tips & Tricks
- I use these cake tins for this bake
- I use this piping tip for the decoration
- I use these piping bags for buttercream
- I use these freeze dried raspberries in my baking
- This cake will last for 3+ days at room temperature
- This cake will freeze for 3+ months
Lemon and Raspberry Cake!
Ingredients
Cake
- 400 g unsalted butter
- 400 g caster sugar
- 400 g self raising flour
- 8 medium eggs
- Zest of 2 lemons
- 300 g raspberries
Buttercream
- 350 g unsalted butter (room temp)
- 700 g icing sugar
- Juice of 2 lemons
Extras
- Raspberry jam
- Fresh raspberries
- Freeze dried raspberries
- Lemon zest
- Sprinkles
Instructions
Cakes
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan and line three 8"/20cm tins with parchment paper, and leave to the side.
- Beat together your butter and sugar for 3-4 minutes until light and fluffy!
- Add in your self raising flour, eggs and lemon zest and beat again for a couple of minutes until smooth
- Try not to over beat - mix until it comes together and is smooth.
- Add in your raspberries and fold through - Split the cake mix between the three tins.
- Once in the tins, bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until baked through. I check my cake is baked by using a skewer, and listening carefully to see if it bubbles! Because of the fruit, this can often take a bit longer!
- Once baked, leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Buttercream
- To make the buttercream, make sure your butter is at room temperature.
- Beat the butter on its own for 3-4 minutes, I use the paddle attachment.
- Once the butter is nice and supple, add the icing Sugar in 1/2 at a time, and beat fully before adding any more in.
- Add in the lemon, and beat again for 3-4 minutes until it's all come together.
Decoration
- Get your first cake onto your chosen plate and spread/pipe over a third of the buttercream.
- Add on a few tablespoons of jam and spread.
- Add on your second cake and spread/pipe the second third of the buttercream on top.
- Finally add on your third sponge and pipe the rest of the buttercream on!
- Decorate with fresh raspberries, freeze dried raspberries, lemon zest and so on! Enjoy!
Notes
- This cake will last for 3 days at room temperature, in a cake box.
- I use fresh raspberries, but you can use frozen if need be - can make the cake take longer to bake though due to moisture.
- If you want to bake a two layer version use...
- 250g butter/sugar/flour and 5 medium eggs with the zest of 1 lemon with 150g raspberries.
- Use 200g butter/400g icing sugar for the buttercream with the juice of 1 lemon!
- Bake into two 8" tins for 30 minutes!
- I recommend using this beautiful piping tip!
- I also recommend buying these freeze dried raspberries as they're the best!
ENJOY!
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J x
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Hi Jane, love your recipes! To make this dairy free would I only have to swap the butter to dairy free (stork in foil)? Thanks 😊
Hey! Yes – just double check other ingredients yourself if you have allergies! X
Hey can you do a YouTube video of this cake? Looks delicious!
I will add it to my list!
Hi. I want to try it. Do you add eggs and flour together? I usually add eggs first one by of incorporating well between each addition, then flour in 2 or 3 parts. Does it make any difference?
I don’t think it makes a difference – I add it all in as the recipe says!
This cake is a real showstopper. It’s delicious. We put raspberry jam in one layer and lemon curd in the other and they were both really tasty. We somehow ended up with extra icing so will probably be making a batch of lemon cupcakes later in the week as well! Another fantastic recipe Jane 🙂
Hi Jane,
Love your page but i wondered if i could use this for a banana sponge and use banana instead of raspberries and lemon? I want to make a Banoffee Pie but as a birthday cake for my husband (his favourite). I can only seem to find recipes for banana loaf which i think would be too heavy. Xxx
I’m afraid I haven’t tried that with this one – but I will repost a banoffee cake soon!
Hi, this looks delicious! I’m planning to make it for my mums birthday to help cheer her up and make up for the lack of presents due to isolation☹️ Would you be able to point me in the right direction of where I can find the recipe for 2 layers please? Thankyou xxx
It’s in the notes section of the recipe card!! X
Hi I’m also going to make this for my mother in law for her birthday next week as I thought it would make a change to the normal lemon and poppyseed I make her every year. Hope she likes it just as much 🤞🏻
Just wondering what tins do you sue for your sponges ?
Thank you 🌈
Hi would I be bale to substitute raspberries for strawberries? Thanks.
Yes – just keep an eye on the cakes whilst baking as strawberries can hold more moisture!
I also wanted to use strawberries. Would this just mean bake for longer or soggy cake.
Many thanks
It definitely depends on the strawberries as they can vary so much, but it does work! x
Hi Jane, I love the look of this!! However my cake tins are not arriving for another couple of weeks…can I do a cupcake version instead?? I’ve already bought all the ingredients! TIA xx
Yes – have a look at my Lemon & Raspberry cupcakes for guidance on timings etc!
Hi Jane, Fantastic Blog! All your bakes look/sound/are delicious!
Quick question, when baking any of your three layer cakes what are the 8” tins that you use? Are they shallow sandwich tins or deeper tins? Can you post a link to the ones you use please?
Thank you in advance.
All of my tins tend to be 3+ inches deep – and I switch depending on which ones are in the dishwasher or not!
Hello, can it be baked and frozen in advance?
Yes, it can!
Hi Jane, if I don’t have medium eggs how many large eggs should I use for this recipe?
For 8 medium, I usually use 6-7 large!
Confused you said mix raspberries in buttercream but you haven’t on the pics? Also said slather not pipe but pic is piped ? I’m an idiot I follow word for word no freestyling on my
Y part 😂
Hahha no that’s translation gone wrong – was meant to be phrased that you CAN do it that way, and have an example picture in there of when I did do it that way, but the picture files failed!
Hi Jane
This combination looks amazing – I love lemon and raspberry so I’m definitely going to give this a go. For the 2 layer version, should it be 200g butter and 400g icing sugar? It’s just that notes section says 200g icing sugar and 400g butter?!
Ooh yes it should be! Oops!
What a beautiful looking cake 😍
Thank you so much!
Hi Jane! How would you do 2/3 of the recipe for a 2 layer cake? Xxxx
Notes on the recipe..!