Easy Mini Lemon Cake Recipe
Mini Lemon Cake- Moist lemon cake filled with a tangy lemon curd and lemon cream cheese frosting. Perfect for a small occasion, smash cake or just for cravings.
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Why You'll love this Recipe:
- Easy: Simple ingredients that you can find in your grocery store
- Moist: Made with butter, oil and buttermilk. All these ingredients help create a moist cake.
- Fresh: It's flavored with lemon juice and fresh lemon zest. The cake is filled with lemon curd which gives
if your looking for more lemon desserts my lovely friends enjoy these mini lemon bundt cakes which are perfect for summer parties and bridal showers. I like to decorate them with chamomile flowers for that beautiful floral touch.
Mini Lemon Cake Ingredients & Substitutions:
- Cake Flour: I love using cake flour when it comes to making cakes or cupcakes. All purpose flour creates a dense cake because there is a higher protein content than cake flour.
- Baking Powder/Baking Soda: No skipping, use the baking soda and baking powder if it's called.
- Sugar: Granulated white sugar is best in this recipe, while sugar can be reduced in the recipe you risk the moisture in the cake.
- Butter/Oil: Unsalted butter and oil is both used in this recipe to create a moist cake. While a butter recipe will stay soft it won't last longer than a day of being soft.
- Eggs: Large Eggs
- Buttermilk: Buttermilk is acidic and it's the best fat to use for cakes and pastries. While you can substitute it with a DIY buttermilk recipe I love to use real store-bought buttermilk.
Full measurements on recipe card below
Let's Make a Mini Lemon Cake:
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease and line two 6-inch cake pans with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, rub the lemon zest into the sugar using your fingers until the mixture is fragrant and slightly moist. This helps release the natural oils from the zest and enhances the lemon flavor.
Add the lemon sugar to your mixer along with the room temperature butter and oil and beat on medium speed for 2–3 minutes until the mixture becomes light, fluffy, and pale in color.
Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the sides well after each addition. Once all the eggs are incorporated, continue beating for about 3 minutes to create a smooth and fluffy batter.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In another container, combine the buttermilk and fresh lemon juice.
With the mixer on low speed, add half of the flour mixture, followed by half of the buttermilk mixture. Repeat this process with the remaining dry ingredients and wet ingredients, mixing just until everything is combined and smooth. Be careful not to overmix.
Divide and pour the batter evenly between the prepared cake pan and smooth the tops of the cake batter.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in a preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool cake in the pans for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Frostings, Fillings, Assembly:
Prepare half a batch of lemon curd recipe. This can be made a day in advance and stored in the refrigerator until ready to use.
To make the frosting, beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the powdered sugar and mix until light and fluffy, then add lemon zest and lemon juice and mix until smooth and spreadable.
Once the cakes are completely cool, level them if needed.
Place one layer onto your serving plate, spread a layer of frosting on top, and add a layer of lemon curd in the center.
Place the second cake layer on top and frost the sides of the cake and top.
Decorate as desired with swirls, extra lemon zest, or keep it simple with a smooth finish. I like to pipe swirls on top of the cake and add extra lemon curd on top or mini lemon slices.
Cake Tips:
Use a scale: A scale is not necessary to make this mini lemon cake, but it is recommended. A couple more grams of flour can do a lot to any baked good not just cakes.
Don't Overmix: Once the wet ingredients are mixed with the dry you want to ideally mix as least as possible! Overmixing causes a tough and hard cake.
Adjust bake time: All ovens are different, baking pans are different you. Check 5 minutes before the suggested time and add more time if needed.
Different pans: Most of the time cakes can be baked into cupcakes pans or mini loaves and even mini little cakes.
Make Ahead Tips:
Bake cake layers ahead of time, plastic wrap and freeze until ready to us. Just thaw it out before using and frost as desired.
You can make the lemon curd at least 3 or 4 days ahead of time.
Bake, frost cake and freeze. I secretly do this all the time for my kids birthday parties and it works like a charm! I just allow the cake to freeze and then wrap it up in plastic wrap and freeze again.
Mini Lemon cake Variations:
Vanilla Cake: Skip the lemon and make it a vanila cake. (Add vanilla bean paste for the perfect vanilla bean speckled cake.)
Lemon Berry Cake: Make a blueberry or raspberry filling instead of the lemon curd.
Mini Lemon Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Lemon Cake Layers
- 175 g Cake Flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 tsp salt Sea Salt
- 175 g White Sugar
- 40 g Unsalted Butter
- 60 g Vegetable Oil
- 2 large Eggs Room Temperature
- 125 ml Buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice
- 2 tablespoon Lemon Zest
Half Batch Lemon Curd
- 2.5 tablespoon Sugar
- 1 Large Egg
- 1 Large Egg Yolk
- 2 tablespoon Lemon Juice
- 1 to 2 tablespoon Lemon 1 Large Lemon
- 4 tablespoon Unsalted butter cold
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces Cream Cheese softened
- 4 ounces Unsalted Butter softened
- 1 ¼ Cup Powdered Sugar
- 2 teaspoon Lemon Juice
- 1 tablespoon Lemon Zest
- Pinch Salt
Instructions
Mini Lemon Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and line your two 6-inch cake pans.
- Wash your lemons and zest it with a micro plane to get the zest. Rub the lemon zest into the sugar to release the lemon oils
- Add the lemon sugar to the butter and oil and cream until light and fluffy, usually takes about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and continue mixing until smooth and then mix on medium speed for another 3 minutes.
- Whisk the dry ingredients separately into another bowl and combine the buttermilk with lemon juice. Alternate adding the dry and wet mixtures into the batter, mixing just until combined.
- Divide the batter between the two pans and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool completely.
Lemon Curd
- In a medium saucepan add all the ingredients except the butter. Mix well with a whisk and place on stove with medium to low heat.
- Constantly stir with a spatula mixing the sides and bottom of the saucepan. It takes a while in the beginning but once it begins to thicken it can overcook fast.
- The lemon curd will thicken and is finished once it coats the back of a spoon. Place the lemon curd over a sieve and push the lemon curd slowly through the sieve to catch any cooked egg yolks or egg whites.
- Add cold butter to the lemon curd and mix in with a clean spatula. Cover and set aside until needed.
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
- Make the frosting by creaming room temperature butter and cream cheese. Mix on low to medium speed until light and creamy. Scrape the sides and the bottom to ensure there are no cream cheese clumps. Add the powdered sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt until smooth.
- Level the cooled cakes, spread frosting and lemon curd between the layers, then frost the outside and decorate as desired.
