Lemon Celebration Cake!
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This Lemon Celebration Cake combines a light, citrus-infused sponge with a warm lemon drizzle, pockets of tangy lemon curd, and a beautifully whipped lemon buttercream frosting. With a 15-minute prep time and 35 minutes in the oven, it’s a foolproof, elegant crowd-pleaser perfect for any summer gathering or tea party.
Notes from The Patisserie
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.
The secret to a truly moist citrus sponge is all in the timing of that drizzle. Pouring a warm liquid sugar mixture over the cake layers the second they come out of the oven ensures it sinks deep into the centre. If you wait until the cake cools, the surface seals up, and the drizzle will simply pool on top, leaving you with a sticky exterior and a dry middle.
Lemon drizzle sponge
While a massive multi-layered cake looks stunning, a reliable two-layer sandwich cake is much easier to bake, handle, and slice. It allows you to simply slather a thick, luxurious layer of buttercream and tangy lemon curd right in the centre without worrying about the cake shifting, collapsing, or leaning on display. For the perfect sponge I use:
- Butter – unsalted butter at room temperature or baking spread works perfectly
- Sugar – I use caster sugar here to create the smooth creamy texture with the butter
- Eggs – as usual I am using medium eggs
- Flour – self raising flour provides the perfect lift to your sponge
- Zest of lemons – natural lemon zest provides that non-synthetic flavouring along with the juice
- Lemon juice – enhances the flavour even more
How to keep your lemon buttercream from splitting
Adding real fruit juice to a fat-based buttercream can be intimidating, and many comments are souly around the fact that their buttercream is splitting. But, with a little patience this will prove to be the saving method for perfect buttercream.
Always start by whipping your real block butter completely on its own for a few minutes until it is perfectly smooth and pale. Sifting and adding your icing sugar slowly builds a sturdy structure that can easily lock in the liquid lemon juice at the end without curdling or weeping. Take your time.
FAQs
Absolutely! While homemade lemon curd is simple to whip up, a high-quality, luxury shop-bought lemon curd works beautifully and saves you extra prep time.
If you don’t have enough fresh lemon juice left to finish the buttercream frosting, you can easily substitute it with 2 teaspoons of high-quality lemon extract instead.
Yes, easily! Because these 8-inch sponge layers bake up thick and sturdy, you can carefully slice each cooled sponge horizontally in half using a long serrated bread knife to create a gorgeous, towering four-layer showstopper.
Caster sugar has a fine grain that dissolves perfectly into warm lemon juice without making it overly thick or gummy, allowing the liquid to run deeply into the baked cake crumbs.
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
- This cake will last in an airtight container for 3-4 days – probably longer as it has so much moisture.
You can freeze it for up to 3 months. - If you don’t 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
Storage and freezing
Because of the incredible moisture from the fresh lemon drizzle, this celebration cake stays remarkably fresh and soft. Store it in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 to 4 days. Avoid putting it in the fridge, as the cold temperature will firm up the butter in the sponges and make them taste dry.
To freeze ahead, wrap the un-iced, fully cooled and drizzled sponge layers tightly in a double layer of cling film and store them in the freezer for up to 3 months. Simply defrost them on your counter overnight before whipping up fresh buttercream and assembling.
Related 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.
Hi Jane i have been asked to make a lemon cake or a Victoria sponge cake for a wake next Tuesday. I only have one 20cm cake tin but I have 2 24cm cake tins. If I was to use the 24cm ones how much would you increase the ingredients by please? Thank you for all your lovely receipts I have only recently got into baking and you make it so easy to follow and everything tastes amazing!
Hey!! You would use 1.4x the recipe – so instead of 350g, I would use about 500g (10 medium eggs!) X
Hello, please can I ask how you get the lemon curd to drip? Sorry If that sounds silly. I’m just getting into baking and love your recipes but not sure how to get this to drip?
Hey! I just mix the lemon curd slightly to loosen it, add it to a piping bag and drizzle!
hi Jane love the sound of this cake but how would I make this into a coconut and lemon cake
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?