This Lemon Berry cake is perfect for summer! It’s a page out of my new cookbook Make it with a Cake Mix and it would be a great addition to any picnic or potluck! Zesty lemon blueberry cake and frosting with raspberry filling decorated with beautiful fresh fruit. Mmm…
When I was working my way through the “layered cake” section of my new book I figured out that letting the cake freeze for a fe minutes in the freezer helped me to get nice clean cuts. Also, run your knife under hot water, then wife off an cut the cake! The blade will melt right through the frosting 🙂
Lemon Berry Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 box white cake mix
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 C. butter melted
- zest of 2 lemons
- 1/3 C. lemon juice
- 2/3 C. buttermilk or milk
- ½ C. plain yogurt or sour cream
- 2 C. blueberries fresh or frozen
Raspberry Buttercream
- ½ C. butter softened
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- 2 Tbsp. pureed raspberries strained to remove seeds (pureed in blender)
- 3 ½ -4 ½ C. powdered sugar
Lemon Buttercream
- 1 C. butter softened
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- zest of 2 lemons
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
- 3 ½ -4 ½ C. powdered sugar
- Note: You can use freeze-dried raspberries for the filling. Pulverize them in a food processor and then sift out the seeds. Use about 1 Tbsp. of pulverized berries you’ll get an amazing punch of color and flavor. OR you can add 3 tsp. of raspberry flavored gelatin to the original recipe for extra color and flavor. If you only want to make a 2-layered cake you don't need to make as much frosting!
Instructions
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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 3 8-inch pans. (I like to line the bottoms of my pans with foil or parchment for easy removal.)
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2. Sift cake mix into a small bowl and set aside.
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3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, buttermilk and yogurt until smooth.
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4. Stir in cake mix and blueberries.
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5. Divide batter evenly between prepared pans and use a spatula to spread batter flat.
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6. Bake for 17-22 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. (If you are making only two layers, it will take 20-25 minutes in the oven.)
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7. Let cool completely.
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8. Raspberry Buttercream: Beat butter and cream cheese for 2 minutes. Add in pureed raspberries and slowly add in powdered sugar until your frosting reaches your desired consistency.
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9. Lemon Buttercream: Beat butter, cream cheese and lemon zest. Add lemon juice and slowly add in powdered sugar until your reach your desired consistency.
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10. Assemble cake by using the raspberry buttercream between each layer and covering the cake with the lemon buttercream. Top with fresh berries for decoration.
In the mood for something chocolate instead? Check out these amazing Chocolate Raspberry Almond Cupcakes!
I want to make this cake for my birthday this month! It sounds so delicious! (Especially for summer!):)
Nice color combination!! The photo makes me hungry. How do you make your buttercream so even and smooth?
If I used Blue Bonnet margarine instead of butter, would the frosting still come out?
Uhh… it won’t be nearly as good and you’ll need to add more powdered sugar!
Made this tonight! Hope it turns out as good as yours 🙂 had a question though. My frostings seemed a little too light and not so sturdy. Esp the lemon buttercream. Too much mixing perhaps? Also my cakes seem a little spongy, again could be the way I mixed 🙂
Add more powdered sugar to thicken it!
Made this cake for get together. The cake is great but you have to keep in mind because your not beating the cake like normal it is heavy and spongy (?) like a full sponge. Therefore you want to keep the frosting light and use as little sugar as necessary but still enough to hold. Obviously the filling is more than ample as you can see in picture so I used half as the cake was yummy and I didn’t want to overwhelm it and not be able to taste all the fat blueberries. The frosting was plenty too so I had leftovers. The cake was refreshing with ll the summer flavors. Now I have enough filling and frosting for blueberry lemon cupcakes!
it looks heavenly!
Could you do an almond cake instead of lemon, and if so, what would you recommend for the cake recipe?
Thanks!
This cake recipe was delicious! It was definitely more of a spongey wet cake, but still delicious. I made my own cake recipe: 2 3/4 cups cake flour, 2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup powdered milk, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda. Also, the filling and frosting were very cream cheesy but still very good!
Am I the only one who found the layers to be WAY too thin? I will double the cake ingredients (except for blueberries) next time. There was more filling than cake. I also tripled the raspberry puree to 6 Tbls, it really didn’t have enough raspberry flavor with 2. Overall great recipe though, really yummy!
I recommend using 8 or 7 inch circle pans as opposed to the standard 9! This keeps the layers thicker!
Can you use strawberries instead of raspberries?
This cake is the perfect taste of summer (although I’d happily make it for spring as well)! I enjoy making celebratory cakes, so I made this one for 4th of July weekend, and it got raves from everyone, including me. Assembling the ingredients may seem a tad involved for a cake that starts from a boxed mix, but it was totally worth the effort. The brightness of the fresh lemon and berries complemented the richness of the cream cheese and sweetness of the sugar perfectly. I did not skimp one bit on ingredients and used my own hens’ eggs. Need to make sure I clear room in the fridge to let the cake/frosting set up after putting the layers together. This will be my go-to summer cake from now on!
Your cake is beautiful. But one question. Did you put Blueberries in between your layers, it looks as if you did !!! 😁
The lemon cake looks so tempting, just looking at it is amazing. Thank you for sharing this amazing cake recipe!
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