This is my favorite cake I’ve baked to date. Say that 5 times fast. The inspiration for this Lemon Elderflower Cake comes from across the pond. When KP (aka Kensington Palace) announced the cake for the Royal Wedding was going to be a Lemon Elderflower Cake, my mind went straight to a boozy, St. Germain cake.
But then I remembered we already made St. Germain cupcakes! However, this cake needed to be booze-less so the wife could eat some. But what do you substitute St. Germain with?
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Did you know about this Elderflower Cordial? It’s like a syrup. Life changing. Bake with it, make drinks with it, do almost anything with it. A little lemon zest, and whatever you’re making is spring ready.
Lemon Elderflower Cake hits the spot
Fatima and I shared a slice the day I made this. YUM, YUM, YUM. It was light, moist, and the lemon and elderflower flavors added a wonderful brightness to the cake. The basic buttercream frosting I whipped up was a touch too sweet, but worked really well with the cake. To be honest, I lost count on the number of cups of sugar I was adding to the frosting. I used 4 or 5 cups of confectioners sugar, so I’m going to go with 5 because it was a firm frosting.
A 1-2-3-4 cake recipe is always a great starting point when trying to make a cake. It’s a basic recipe to help you figure out how to layer everything else in. My main concern was trying to figure out how to balance the lemon and elderflower. So I used that recipe and the St. Germain cupcakes to figure out how to blend the flavors. The St. Germain cupcakes were really good, but they were a little tart. If I used lemon zest instead of lemon juice, I knew that would help to brighten up the cake and cut down on the bite.
I used this cake as an excuse to buy two things: a zester and a 5 inch cake pan. When we make cakes, I can’t make a large cake. I’m usually the only one eating it after the first day. This time around, I made the difficult decision to bring it into work. I knew it wouldn’t be coming back.
Cake Cake Cake Cake
My cake decorating skills continue to surprise me. We attempted a red velvet naked cake a few years ago. It was a little too naked for my liking. I remember that I had so many issues frosting between the layers. After watching a few spring baking championships, I realized I needed to pipe in the layer. I started with one line on the edge and then filled in the rest in a swirl motion working towards the middle. It held my layers up and prevented them from sliding off.
I scraped frosting around the cake for a naked look. But I needed a little more dimension and pizzaz. I dropped Hershey Kiss shaped frosting along the perimeter on top. Fatima topped it off with purple wax flowers and voilà! The cutest lemon elderflower cake ever!
Lemon Elderflower Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 1 cup butter at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups + 2 tsp. all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 4 tbsp. elderflower cordial
For the frosting:
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter at room temperature
- 4-5 cups confectioners sugar
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 1/4 cup whole milk
Directions
- Using a kitchen aid or hand mixer, whisk the butter until light and fluffy.
- Add sugar to the butter and whisk together.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.
- Mixing on low, alternate adding the eggs and flour. You do this in cakes from scratch to prevent separation and help with absorption.
- Add elderflower cordial and lightly mix until combined.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (F).
- Grease, flour and layer the bottom of 3, 5” cake pans with parchment paper.
- Add batter to your cake pans filling only about half way. You’ll end up with some batter leftover, so make a few cupcakes!
- Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing from the pan. Cool on wire racks.
- Once completely cooled, wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge. This will help when frosting.
To make the frosting:
- Beat butter until light and fluffy.
- Reduce speed to medium and gradually add confectioners sugar. The frosting will look crumbly or like Dippin’ Dots.
- Add vanilla and milk and whisk until you see something that looks like frosting!
Pair this with our Elderflower Margarita!
Light and Bright Elderflower Margarita | Lilies and Loafers
May 2, 2018 at 8:00 am[…] While St. Germain is the obvious choice, I used elderflower cordial. We had a bottle from the lemon elderflower cake, and I wanted to experiment with […]