- Hey, I'm John Kannell.
And today, on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making a luscious lemon cake.
So let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350
get it nice and hot into a large bowl.
I'm adding 300 grams
or two and a half cups of all purpose flour, perfect.
For a little contrast,
we want three quarters of a teaspoon of salt.
So wake our cake up, one and a half teaspoons
of baking powder and half a teaspoon of baking soda.
The baking soda's gonna react with the acids
from the lemon juice and the buttermilk coming later on
and it's gonna give us a really light and fluffy cake.
Whenever you have a baked good
and it has some acid in it,
you're gonna be using some baking soda
so the acid gives you a lift.
The baking powder has it all built in
so it doesn't need that.
Whisk it up and we're gonna set this aside
while we get our butter, sugar, lemon situation happening.
Now we're gonna add one cup
or 226 grams of room temperature
unsalted butter in and room temperature means
that you can press into the butter
and with a little bit of pressure, the butter will yield.
It's not falling apart in a pool,
and it's not really hard either.
Very important because the softness
of the butter determines how it mixes
in with everything else,
cream it up on medium speed
until it's like all worked up into a nice paste.
Once it's nice and creamy, I'm gonna add one
and a half cups of sugar in, it's 300 grams.
Hmm, we're gonna scrape this bowl down
and then add the zest of about two lemons,
it's two tablespoons.
This is where a microplane or a rasp come in so handy.
They get the skin off of any citrus fruit.
You can have beautiful clouds of cheese,
freshly graded nutmeg, the list goes on.
The skin of the lemon has so much oil in there
and that's packed with flavor.
So adding the zest in is gonna give your cake a huge lift.
I grew up with lemon trees
and this is one of the cakes we would love to make.
I played with the recipe that my mom had quite a bit
and it's just super like full of zest,
it's light it melt in your mouth.
And later on, there's a lemon cream cheese frosting
that you are going to love.
Now we're gonna mix this on medium for about five minutes
until it is light and fluffier than can be,
while that's mixing, you're gonna grab two eight inch pans.
I cut out some parchment circles.
This is optional, but it makes the cake remove full proof.
Add some butter to the side, place that parch and paper on
and then add a little spoon full of flour
and kick it around.
Repeat for the other pan, give these lemons a good roll.
So they get nice and juicy.
And we're going to strain these into a measuring cup.
We need about a quarter cup of fresh lemon juice
and yes for this cake, you would only use fresh,
never that bottled stuff.
A quick scraped in,
my butter is light and fluffy, look at that.
And all of that lemon zest has really been
like mashed into the sugar so it has so much flavor,
adding in three room temperature eggs in one at a time.
At this point, you might see the mixture break a bit
just scrape the bowl down one last time.
It's okay if it looks a little bit chunky,
all the liquid from the eggs,
it's just not gonna mix with the butter.
So it's gonna have a somewhat dimpled consistency.
It won't be like a nice cohesive mixture.
Just a minute or so of mixing,
and I wanna show you the consistency up close.
So it has a little bit of that dimpling
but it is pretty smooth.
And that's because our butter was the right temperature.
Now for the fun part
we're gonna combine one cup of buttermilk
with our quarter cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
It's about two lemons, but you might need a little bit more.
Just give it a quick stir.
I'm adding in one tablespoon of vanilla right now.
Here we go.
Now we're gonna add the flour mixture
and the milk mixture in a couple alternating batches
while mixing on lowest setting.
And I would mix until almost combined
not until it's just combined.
We can always finish it off by hand.
I said this before, but over mixing your cake batter
is one of your worst enemies in baking,
it's like that and mismeasuring the flour.
Too much flour and your cake's gonna be kinda like bready
and just like dense, dense bready cake.
Too much mixing and your cake batter
is gonna contract after baking and be gummy
and have like no melt in your mouth texture.
It'll be really bad just from over mixing.
All right, so here I let it mix
until it was almost combined.
There's a ton of flour streaks.
There's a lot of butter streaks
but I wanna finish this off with my spatula.
It gives me the best control.
If I'm ever making something like whipped cream
I'll whip the cream with the machine for a bit
and I'll finish it off by hand
so I can be sure it won't cuddle and get overmixed.
Just work all the flour in,
this mixture is so foamy right now
because of all the acid and the lemon juice
and the buttermilk reacting with the baking soda.
This is ready to go into my two pans.
I'm gonna measure it out.
So it's nice and even, I didn't mention this earlier
but adding acid into any cake batter is amazing
because it gives you a tender cake.
That happens because the acid inhibits
some of the gluten from forming
and getting those like bread chewy bonds
in addition to reacting with the baking soda.
So there's like a lot
of magic happening in this cake behind the scenes.
So it's like just over 600 grams of batter per pan.
If you're measuring it out,
use your spatula to level the batter out in the pan.
And then this is optional.
But if you want a very flat level cake with soft sides,
you can apply cake strips to the pan before baking
and cake strips are just wet fabric strips
like a wet headband, basically that you pop
on your cake and it cools everything down.
So it'll keep the edge nice and cool.
So it doesn't burn and everything rises together evenly.
It's one of the secrets
to having a cake that's really easy to stack and decorate.
These are gonna bake it three 50 for 35 to 40 minutes
or until the center has a skewer that can come out clean
or it's springy to the touch.
You'll also see the edge as just pulling away
from the pan when it's done baking, in you go.
While my cakes are cooling and they smell so good
I wish that you were here.
Maybe you'll make this recipe.
We're gonna make a cream cheese lemon frosting
that is to die for.
So pardon the crinkles
but I need eight ounces of softened cream cheese, 226 grams
an equal amount of room temperature, unsalted butter.
If you watch this channel frequently, you'll know
that one of my childhood snacks that I adored growing up
was a cream cheese burrito.
(blows kiss)
So good.
Just a nice corn tortilla that you warmed up over a flame
that big block of cream cheese in the middle,
roll it up and enjoy.
Anyways, we're gonna cream up
the cream cheese and butter now,
the cream cheese really had to be softened
because if it was hard, you'd have little lumps
of cream cheese and it just doesn't mix really well.
Let this run medium for a minute or two
until it's all mixed up, scrape the bowl down as needed.
And you scrape at least once.
So not only did I grow up with lemon trees
but my grandfather was from Greece.
So there is a strong desire to put lemon in everything.
My brother's wife actually makes fun of both of us
because oftentimes instead of adding salt to something,
we're just like pour lemon juice in, so good lemon.
All right, this is nice.
You wanna grab a big lemon
or two small lemons as well as a rasp.
And now we're going to zest the whole lemon.
This is gonna give us a ton of amazing flavor.
And it also has little specs
of some shiny yellow throughout once the frosting is done.
Mm and honestly, if you wanted to like
just add a more lemon zest, not gonna be mad at you.
You do it.
Let this mix for about three minutes
on medium and it's gonna get light and fluffy
but you're also agitating
all of the lemon zest and in doing so,
you're releasing the lemon oil and a ton of flavor.
So just give it some time in here.
You could do a dish or two
or watch some Preppy Kitchen videos on TikTok, YouTube
or whatever you like.
A few minutes later, I just wanna show you the consistency
because it really is so light and fluffy.
Look at this cloudy mixture
of cream cheese, butter, and lemon zest.
It's so light and just amazing.
It's gonna be really great
once we add in the rest of the ingredients.
Now we're gonna add in about seven cups of powdered sugar
and you're gonna do this while the mixer is running on low.
We're gonna alternate the powdered sugar
with a little bit of lemon juice.
That'll help everything mix together.
In total you'll use about two tablespoons of lemon juice.
Let it mix in and keep adding.
Let me know in the comments
how much powdered sugar you think I'll be spilling
on the counter,
I'm going for no powdered sugar spilled
on the counter at all.
Okay, a little bit more lemon juice,
a little bit more powdered sugar
and just repeat that process back and forth.
And when you get to the sixth cup
you can give it a taste and also take a look at the texture.
The powdered sugar is gonna be giving
the frosting some strength
and body as well as some sweetness.
I'm gonna give this a scrape add
in my last little bit of lemon juice
and then we're gonna give it a blessing of vanilla
just a half a teaspoon.
The moment of truth.
Mm, that's so nice.
I was thinking about how I want to decorate this cake.
So right now the plan
is to reserve about a cup of frosting for dollops.
That should be good.
This gets set aside, but I think the cake would look pretty
with a slight yellow tint.
So I'm gonna add one drop
of this weak food coloring in and just give it a mix.
If you don't wanna use food coloring,
you could use a little bit of turmeric.
My mom loves turmeric, so it's nothing crazy,
it's just like a little hint of yellow.
Okay, now we're ready to assemble our cake,
grab a cake plate
and we're gonna carefully move these layers on.
They're very tender
As the cake has a lot of melt in your mouth qualities.
First layers on, I would add about a cup of frosting.
Give that a quick smooth.
This frosting is so like luscious and soft
and I love the lemon flavor.
Second layer goes on.
Now we're gonna add the remaining frosting
give it a good cover.
And for this cake
I don't really think that you need a crumb coat.
A crumb coat is where you just completely cover the cake
at paper thin layer of frosting.
You set the cake in the fridge
and you let it set up and then you add a final layer.
And then that will basically protect any crumbs
from coming off the cake.
I'm just adding all the frosting
on top and we'll work it down.
My tools of choice here are the turntable
so I can spin my cake, a bench scraper for the side
and then an offset spatula for the top.
These tools will really help you decorate a cake with ease.
So it will be easy breezy and no fuss, no mass.
Things only get frustrating
if you don't have the right tools.
♪ To-do-to-do ♪
Now we're gonna use our bench scraper
and start spreading the frosting all around.
I always think that people who are cake decorators
would make excellent plasterers.
So it's from someone who's on home renovation projects
and I actually have plastered a lot of things.
Okay, just a final bit around the edge.
And now we're gonna get rid
of this ridge here by using our offset spatula
and pulling in as I turn, just like that.
Just make sure to wipe your spatula off in between swipes,
in a final little bit on the top to smooth it out.
Now, we're gonna make this pretty with some dollops
and a little bit of magic.
Drop a piping tip in, I'm using an 846.
It's a larger closed star tip.
Fill it up with our reserve frosting.
I'm gonna do a little practice dollop.
You can always use a spatula or a plate
or even your bowl just to get a feeling
for how it looks before it's on the cake.
Okay, now for the moment of truth.
So dollop towards the edge.
One, two, up, oh, that's nice, dot toward the edge.
One, two, and just keep going.
I don't wanna go crazy,
but we're gonna add a few really paper thin lemon slices
just in between the dollops.
And one of our neighbors has this beautiful farm
with fields of these tiny edible pansies.
I stopped by yesterday, picked some up
and I think they'd be perfect on this cake.
Just a smattering here and there.
And I will say you want to add the pansies
just before serving because they won't last forever.
The frosting is soft and beyond luscious.
You might wanna let your cake set up
in the fridge for just a few minutes before cutting it
'cause it will be soft, but so delicious.
It's totally up to you.
Bright zingy, the cake melt in your mouth.
The frosting is just
like a heavenly cloud of lemony amazingness.
Oh my gosh, my mouth is watering.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video, check out my Lemon playlist.