This Lemon Raspberry Layer Cake has moist, light layers of lemon cake, lemon curd filling and a raspberry frosting. It’s decorated with buttercream, lemon slices and a few blossom flowers for a cake that’s perfect for summer!
Lemon and Raspberry: My Favorite Flavor Combo in an Easy Cake
Lemon raspberry is one of my favorite flavor combinations this time of year and always reminds me of my grandmother. There are two things she’s always loved – cake with lots of icing and lemon. It’s a love of two things that we share.
I will always remember her birthday celebrations when I was a kid. There were always lots of big buttercream flowers involved. And since my birthday is on Christmas, she’d often make her birthday a mini half-year celebration of my own as well, just to be sure I didn’t feel cheated out of a birthday. 🙂
Instead of buttercream flowers on this cake though, I decided to go a bit simpler. There are buttercream swirls, some lemon slices and raspberries and a few fondant blossoms that are super easy to make. All of it sits on top of a little swirl that you make with an offset spatula. Relatively easy to do, but creates a great look.
Inside the cake, you’ve got a moist lemon cake to start. It’s light, fluffy and pretty straightforward to make. Just be sure to not skimp on the creaming of the butter and sugar – always an important step.
Between the layers of cake is a lovely lemon curd and raspberry buttercream. Sweet and tart all in two beautiful layers. I suggest making the lemon curd and lemon cake layers first, then the frosting and putting it all together. The curd will take some time to cool completely after being made.
The outside of the cake is covered in more raspberry buttercream for a lovely pink and summery look. I love that all the pink color of the frosting comes just from the raspberry puree in the frosting. And for help with making a smoothly frosted cake, check out my tutorial, How to Frost a Smooth Cake with Buttercream.
This cake is incredibly moist and full of flavor. It’s a wonderful combination of sweet and tangy. I hope you love this cake as much as I do! It’s certainly perfect for spring and summer and great for any occasion.
More Lemon Raspberry Dessert Recipes
- Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes
- Mini Lemon Raspberry Cheesecakes
- Lemon Raspberry Cookie Sandwiches
- Berry Lemon Cheesecake Cookie Cups
- Lemon Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake
- Lemon Raspberry Layer Cake
Lemon Raspberry Layer Cake
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
- Yield: 12–14 Slices 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Lemon Raspberry Layer Cake has moist, light layers of lemon cake, lemon curd filling and a raspberry frosting. It’s decorated with buttercream, lemon slices and a few blossom flowers for a cake that’s perfect for summer!
Ingredients
LEMON CURD
- 6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
- ½ cup sugar
- 6 egg yolks
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
LEMON CAKE
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¾ cup sour cream
- 1 ½ tbsp lemon zest
- 6 egg whites
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ¾ cup milk
- ¼ cup water
RASPBERRY FROSTING
- 1 ¼ cups unsalted butter
- 1 ¼ cups vegetable shortening
- 12 cups powdered sugar
- 2 ¼ cups (9 oz) raspberries
- 1–2 tbsp water or milk
ADDITONAL
- Fondant
- Pearl sprinkles
- Yellow pearl dust
Instructions
1. Combine all ingredients in a double boiler and heat while stirring constantly with a whisk. It’s done when it’s thick enough to coat the back of a smooth.
2. Refrigerate lemon curd until cool and thick.
TO MAKE CAKE LAYERS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line three 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper and grease the sides.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes.
3. Add vanilla extract, sour cream and lemon zest and mix until combined.
4. Add egg whites in two batches, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed to make sure all is incorporated and smooth.
5. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. In another small bowl or measuring cup, combine milk and water.
6. Had half of the dry ingredients to the batter and mix until combined. Add milk/water combination and mix until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add remaining dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
7. Divide batter evenly between the three 8 inch pans and bake for 23-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out with a few crumbs.
TO MAKE RASPBERRY FROSTING:
1. Puree fresh raspberries, then press through a fine mess sieve to remove pulp and seeds. You should end up with about ½ a cup of raspberry liquid.
2. Combine butter and shortening and beat until smooth.
3. Add 4 cups of powdered sugar and beat until smooth.
4. Add raspberry liquid and beat until well combined.
5. Slowly add remaining powdered sugar, beating until smooth.
6. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk or water, as needed, to thin out the frosting.
TO PUT THE CAKE TOGETHER:
1. Remove the tops of the cakes with a large serrated knife, so they are flat. Place first cake on serving plate or on a cardboard cake circle.
2. Top cake with about ¾ cup of raspberry frosting and spread into an even layer. Pipe a dam of raspberry frosting around the outside edge of the cake, then fill it with half of the lemon curd.
3. Top lemon curd with second layer of cake and repeat another layer of raspberry frosting and lemon curd.
4. Add final layer of cake, the frost the outside of the cake with the raspberry frosting.
5. Before the frosting on top of the cake has a chance to firm up too much, use your offset spatula to create the lines on top. Starting from the center, hold the tip of your spatula on the cake at about a 30-45 degree angle. Your cake should be on a turntable so that it’s easy to turn the cake and complete the circle. Make one circle at a time, moving from the center of the cake to the outside.
6. Pipe several tall swirls of frosting on the back half of the top of the cake, leaving some space between for adding lemon slices and raspberries. Add lemon slices and raspberries to cake.
7. To make the fondant flowers, use a small blossom cutter. Use a brush to dust a little bit of yellow pearl dust in the center, then add a little bit of sugar water* in the center of the flower and press a small pearl sprinkle into the center. Add flowers to cakes.
Cake should be refrigerated until ready to serve. Best served after allowing to sit out for about 30 minutes.
* To make the sugar water, add about 2 tbsp of water to a small bowl. Break up a few pieces of fondant and place it into the water. Let it sit for about 10 minutes and dissolve the fondant. It will create a sticky sugar water that will help the sprinkles stick to the center of the flowers.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Slice
- Calories: 1352
- Sugar: 201.6 g
- Sodium: 134.3 mg
- Fat: 52 g
- Carbohydrates: 223.3 g
- Protein: 6.9 g
- Cholesterol: 162.1 mg
Enjoy!
CannI use frozen raspberries?🌺
That should be fine.
Hello my name is KIKI and I really want to make this recipe for my daughter and her husband I am wondering can I use a raspberry jam instead of fresh raspberries please let me know I am a beginner baker thank you
You can use raspberry jam, the flavor and color will just be a little bit different.
Want to make this cake for my daughter’s bday. Can I make it a day ahead and refrigerate or will the curd make the cake too soggy after 24 hours? Beginner baker here, thanks!
Yes, you definitely can.
Just made this cake for my girlfriend’s birthday.
It tastes fantastic — and maybe I’m a perfectionist, but it did NOT take an hour and a half to make.
Between the waiting for things to cool properly and icing the cake with a crumb coat (and waiting for that to cool) it took more like 4 hours. 😂 Totally worth it, though.
Hi! I am baking my son’s first birthday cake and was wondering if blueberries would work instead of raspberries? Thanks so much!
The short answer is yes. The long answer is that you could also make my Lemon Blueberry Cake, which is an even better and newer recipe. Or you could refer to this Blueberry Crumble Cake for a blueberry frosting, if you’d prefer to use this cake with blueberries. I hope that helps!
This is a much delayed reply, but thank you! The cake turned out better than I could have hoped!
Can you freeze this cake and frost it later.
Sure, just wrap it well with clear wrap and then foil and then freeze it. Then thaw it in the fridge prior to frosting.
HELLO, I was wondering if I can use cake flour instead of all purpose flour? thank you!
Sounds delicious!! Only have two cake pans could I cut the recipe to make it a two layer cake?
You could cut it in half and have a shorter cake, or bake the cake it as is in two layers.
Hi! Just wanted to know if I can use strawberries instead of raspberries for this recipe
Hi, I can’t wait to try this recipe. I would like to cover the cake with fondant. Is the raspberry frosting stable enough? I’m worried the raspberries might make it too wet or cause it to split.
I honestly don’t work with fondant enough to be able to say. Sorry!
Amazing recipe! Made this recipe for my prom this year! However, raspberries are expensive where I live, so I ended up using the excess raspberries from making the frosting to decorate the top.
So glad you enjoyed it!
Need to know how you pureed the raspberries…..
In a food processor.
Hi, can the sour cream be replaced with something else? Thanks 🙂
You could try swapping it our for additional milk.
Just made this gorgeous cake last night. However, I did not find that the lemon cake was lemony enough and it was a bit dense. The curd was delicious. Finally, the icing was not my fave…the vegetable shortening really alters the taste (for me). However, it DOES make a firm frosting that’s very easy to work with. I can see why it stands up to the lemon curd.
Thanks for the easy directions!! It’s a beautiful cake.
Hi, i made this for my daughter’s 19th, the lemon cake came out very dense and light on the lemon flavor… what did I do wrong? Maybe I should’ve whip the egg whites and folded them in? Or is this a dense cake? The frosting and curd were fine, although my frosting needed much more liquid and i doubled my curd.
I really loved the decorations you made it was very elegant. I would love to make it again, if I could get the cake lighter.
I’m not sure if you did anything wrong or not. But a common mis-step is to not fully cream the butter and sugar together, which can give a more dense cake. Or to over-mix the batter at the end. That said, this lemon cake is a more recent recipe and is much lighter. You could use that and then use the raspberry frosting from this cake in the future.
For my daughters 17th birthday, I made this cake – it is the first cake I’ve made from scratch in over a decade. I had to use frozen raspberries for the sauce and I didn’t have 8” pans so I used two 9” and a much smaller one (just not sure of the size). Both minor changes worked out just fine. I also couldn’t find my decorating tools so I just painted on some raspberry sauce and used fresh fruit to decorate the pretty pink frosting. The cake was a big hit thanks in large part to the delicious lemon curd. Thanks for the recipe,
I followed your directions to the letter and they were very clear and well written! The cake turned out fabulous and we all enjoyed this very special cake for my bday. Thanks a lot!
So glad you enjoyed it!
About how many cups of raspberry frosting does this recipe make?
I didn’t measure it, but I’m guessing around 7 cups.