Lemon Raspberry Cake With Lots Of Lemon Zest And Fresh Raspberry Filling Is A Summertime Favorite
Lemon raspberry cake is a reader favorite! Watch my video on how to make a delicious lemon raspberry cake with raspberry filling and raspberry buttercream! Talk about raspberry overload!
Lemon raspberry cake needs to be on your summer baking list! If you love my vanilla cake recipe or my classic lemon cake recipe you’re gonna flip over this one.
This fresh lemon raspberry cake is packed full of lemon flavor but my favorite part is the fresh raspberry filling swirled throughout the cake and the yummy bites of raspberries!
So pretty! The cake is frosted and filled with my go-to easy buttercream frosting, topped with more raspberry filling for the drip. Sliced lemons and more raspberries look so yummy!
One of my best friends Kelsey happens to have about 50 raspberry bushes next to her house (lucky girl) and recently brought me over about three pounds! I was SO excited! But as you know, raspberries spoil very quickly so even though I hadn’t planned on baking that day, I baked THREE raspberry goodies which I’ll be posting over the next two weeks.
Lemon Cake Recipe
Let’s start with the lemon portion of this lemon raspberry cake! This is actually my favorite lemon cake recipe that I have been using for years with an extra bit of lemon extract and lemon juice. I feel like lemon cake that has too much extract tastes like candy so I prefer to get most of my flavor from the zest.
This cake recipe is made with cake flour which is a very delicate white flour. Cake flour gives you the most delicious tender crumb when combined with the reverse mixing method.
When making this cake, make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature so that they properly combine. Cold milk or butter will curdle the mixture and cause your cake to fall flat. Literally.
You’ll also want to use a scale. If you try to google volume measurements (cups) I promise it won’t turn out and do you really want to waste all that precious butter? You can get the scale I use on amazon or you can buy a scale at pretty much any store for under $20.
If you’re like me and you forget to bring your ingredients to room temperature ahead of time, you can use my lazy baker hack. I place my eggs in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes, microwave my milk for 30 seconds (time varies depending on your microwave) and I microwave my butter for 20 seconds. Voila!
Raspberry Filling
One of the most awesome things about raspberries is they make a fantastic filling! This recipe is basically raspberry jam plus a little cornstarch to make it a bit more stable for using as a cake filling. The cornstarch doesn’t make it TOO thick though so you can totally use it like a refrigerator jam and spread it on everything from pound cake to biscuits (which I TOTALLY did).
To make the raspberry filling all you do is combine the raspberries with the sugar and bring to a boil. I choose to use an immersion blender to make the filling more smooth but you can leave it chunky.
Add in your lemon and cornstarch slurry and let it simmer until clear and smooth. let cool before using it inside your cakes. I like to pour mine into a cake pan and spread it thin so it cools faster.
How To Make A Lemon Raspberry Layer Cake
To make this moist lemon cake into a raspberry lemon cake, I mix up my lemon batter as usual and then before baking, I swirl in some dollops of raspberry filling and sprinkle in some fresh raspberries.
The raspberry tends to sink to the bottom so I leave all the good stuff at the top to keep it as suspended in the batter as possible. I dust my raspberries with some flour to help adhere them to the batter and keep them from sinking.
I baked this lemon raspberry cake in the morning and then chilled them in the freezer until they where firm enough to handle (about an hour).
Then I filled them with easy buttercream and raspberry filling. I topped the cake with some sliced lemon, more raspberries and berry drip. I was in a hurry to get to dinner with my cake so I just used a spoon to drizzle but you could put the filling into a piping bag and make a cleaner drip.
This lemon raspberry cake was SUCH a huge hit! The kids devoured it and I must admit I went in for a second slice. Even as I’m blogging about this I am thinking about the next time I can make this yummy cake!
Make sure you check out the video in the recipe for more details on how to make this luscious lemon raspberry cake with raspberry filling.
Recipe
Lemon Raspberry Buttermilk Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Raspberry Filling
- 16 oz fresh or frozen raspberries
- 5 oz sugar
- 1 Tbsp lemon zest
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 4 oz cool water
- 1 Tbsp corn starch
Lemon Raspberry Cake Ingredients
- 13 oz cake flour
- 12 oz granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 8 oz unsalted butter
- 8 oz buttermilk Or regular milk with 1 Tbsp white vinegar added
- 3 oz vegetable oil
- 3 large eggs
- 2 Tbsp lemon zest
- 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 tsp lemon extract
- 2 Tbsp AP Flour for dusting blueberries
- 10 oz raspberries You can use frozen but don't thaw them
Buttercream
- 4 oz pasteurized egg whites room temperature
- 16 oz unsalted butter room temperature
- 16 oz powdered sugar sifted
- 1 tsp lemon extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 oz raspberry puree
Instructions
Raspberry Filling Instructions
- Combine raspberries and sugar in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Use an immersion blender to make the filling smooth (or leave chunky if you prefer). Combine your cornstarch and water to make a slurry. Pour it into the raspberry mixture and let it simmer until mixture is clear and thickened. Remove from heat, stir in lemon juice and zest and let cool before using.
Store leftovers in the fridge for up to a week or freeze for 6 months.
Buttercream Instructions
- Place egg whites and powdered sugar in a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment. Whisk to combine. Add in butter in small chunks then vanilla extract and salt. Whip on high until light and fluffy and white. Optional: whip in 1/4 cup raspberry pureeOptional: switch to the paddle attachment and mix on low for 15-20 minutes until all air bubbles are gone.
Lemon Raspberry Cake Instructions
- Heat oven to 335º F/168º C — 350º F/177º C. I tend to use lower setting to prevent my cakes from getting too dark on the outside before the inside is done baking. Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature or slightly warm (eggs, buttermilk, butter)
- Measure out buttermilk. Place 4 oz in separate measuring cup. Add oil to the 4oz of buttermilk and set aside. To the remaining milk, add your eggs (lightly whisked to break them up) extract, lemon juice and lemon zest.
- Measure out dry ingredients and place them into the stand mixer bowl.
- Attach the paddle to the mixer, and turn on the slowest speed (setting 1 on Kitchen Aid mixers). Slowly add chunks of your softened butter until it is all added. Let mix until batter resembles coarse sand.
- Add your milk/oil mixture all at once to the dry ingredients and mix on medium (speed 4 on kitchenaid) for 2 full minutes.
- Scrape the bowl. This is an important step. If you skip it, you will have hard lumps of flour and unmixed ingredients in your batter. If you do it later, they will not mix in fully.
- Slowly add in the rest of your liquid ingredients in 3 parts, stopping to scrape the bowl one more time halfway through. Your batter should be thick and not too runny.
- Lightly grease 2 8" cake pans cake goop or other pan release. Fill pans 3/4 full. Give the pan a little tap on each side to level out the batter and get rid of any air bubbles.
- Add 3-4 large dollops of your raspberry filling to the cake batter and use a spoon or knife to swirl it through the batter. I also add in about 1/4 cup of fresh raspberries dusted with flour sprinkled on top. Do not stir them in.
- I always start by baking for 30 minutes for 8" and smaller cakes and 35 minutes for 9" and larger cakes and then checking for doneness. If the cakes are still really jiggly, I add another 5 minutes. I check every 2 minutes after that until I'm close and then it's every 1 minute. Cakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs.
- After cakes have cooled for 10 minutes or the pans are cool enough to touch, flip the cakes over and remove from the pans onto the cooling racks to cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator.
- Once the cakes are chilled in the refrigerator and feel firm you can trim off the brown edges from the sides (optional) and fill with your buttercream and more of your raspberry filling. It's best to create a dam (see video) to help hold in the raspberry filling and keep it from oozing out. Crumb coat the cake with buttercream, chill then apply your final coat of buttercream. Top with lemon slices, more raspberries and a drizzle of raspberry filling around the outside edge.
Nutrition
Hi Liz,
Today, I just make this lemon cake. I try to reduce sugar to 11oz and few blueberry filling into the cake butter. It’s still turn out super good texture and soft ! I love this recipe !
Thank you so much for the great recipe and video (making vanilla cake).!
That’s great! I’ve been meaning to try a blueberry version too!
I don’t mean to be picky but should there be some lemon in the lemon buttercream?! 😁
Hi Liz, this cake looks delicious 😋 I was thinking of using your White Chocolate Ganache for the frosting instead of buttercream. Your thoughts?
Thank you
Would be a great combo!
hi Liz,
can we use AP flour in this recipe?
I want to try this but I worry about the seeds. Would it work if i strain it
Yes you can strain it (what are you worried about with the seeds btw? They aren’t harmful or taste bad) strain before you add the cornstarch
Is this cake recipe sturdy enough to stack for a tiered cake?
Yes this is all I use for sculpted and stacked cakes
would blue berries work well w/this?
Totally and would be so yummy!
Could I substitute marion berries as written in this recipe? Would the berries needed to be halved, as they are larger than raspberries?
marion berries would be delicious, I would half them because they are so large (fresh berries)
Hello!
Im from Panama, and we dont have cake flour, could I use AP? or I could convert the AP to cake flour? please let me know 🙂
For this recipe you do need do to use cake flour. If all you have is AP flour try this recipe https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/white-cake-recipe/#wprm-recipe-container-10281
Besides catering and making several wedding cakes every weekend, I also make desserts for several area restaurants and resorts (I’m in The Thousand Islands). One of my most requested desserts is my Lemon Cake, with Lemon Curd and Raspberry Pastry Fillings, and Lemon French Buttercream Frosting. I agree with you about using too much lemon extract, and likewise, use a lot of lemon zest. I bake all my cakes in 3″ high cake pans, so I torte this cake into 4 layers, and fill between the middle 2 layers with Lemon Curd, and between the other layers with a Raspberry Pastry Filling. I don’t like to use jams or jellies because I think they are too sweet. And I like Lemon Curd not too sweet. I also drizzle each layer with a Lemon Simple Syrup (leaning toward a little ‘puckery’, and not really sweet) as I assemble the cake. My signature frosting is a Mock Whip Frosting, which is the most requested of all my frostings, but for this cake, I like to use my Lemon French Buttercream.
I encourage all the students in my Wilton Classes to invest in an 8″ by 3″ cake pan, since it’s easier to stack level layers. I also suggest that they don’t bake any cake higher than 300 degrees, which guarantees a flat cake. This gives the edges of a cake more time to bake higher before being set, and results in little or no center dome. And, since testing a cake for doneness with a skewer, or toothpick, can still result in an underbaked cake in the center, I teach my students (I also teach the baking classes at a local culinary college) to test their cakes with an instant-read thermometer, like you’d test a steak for doneness. Once the internal temperature of a cake reaches 212 degrees, the liquid in the cake boils and evaporates very quickly, resulting in a dry cake. When a cake’s temp reaches about 207-208 degrees, it’s ready to come out of the oven. Cakes will still bake a few more minutes out of the oven, so this is the sweet spot for the internal temperature. Other pastries have different internal temps – i.e. custards, cheesecakes, etc. – but for a cake, this is a good way to tell. Baking a cake a day ahead, and wrapping it tightly in saran wrap BEFORE it is completely cool, also help to guarantee a moist cake. I’ve only frozen a cake when I had to stack a large cake layer on a soft filling, and I never refrigerate a cake until I’m torting, filling, and first coating.
That is a great tip about the internal thermometer. I have one of those and I will be testing that tomorrow during my baking session.
When using a 3″ cake Pan how full do you fill the Pan?
Great tips. Thank you.
Hello,
This cake looks very moist and pretty. If I wanted to make a three layer cake (my pans are 9 in rounds), should I multiply the recipe by 1 and 1/2 times or double it? Would I do the same for your vanilla cake to make three 9-in layers?
Thank you.
I would double the recipe for three 9″ cakes
Is the nutritional information for one slice of cake? Or the whole cake? 😆
lol the whole cake, but who’s counting calories on a cake anyway huh? lol
Not sure if you know this trick or not but if you lightly coat whatever fruit filling you’re putting into a cake with flour then it has less chance of sinking to the bottom. Just A little something I learned doing a lot of British baking.
My bad I hadn’t watched the video yet so I didn’t see that you did the flour thing with the raspberries.
Where do you get your cake flour?
I get mine in bulk from cash and carry but you can find it in the baking aisle in most grocery stores
Can I add some kind of lemon to the buttercream? If so, what and how much? Cakes are in the over and I’ll ice them tomorrow morning. Thanks:)
Yes of course, you can add lemon extract or lemon zest to your taste.
What’s the best way to store the cake if making the day before eating?
Room temperature
Hi Liz, will it be ok to add buttermilk instead of whole milk? please advise. thank you!!!!
Buttermilk is more acidic than regular milk so it could affect the recipe. I’d advise doing a test first.
I’m one of the few minority who hate lemon zest. If I omit the zest would I increase the lemon juice?
Thanks
Lemon juice doesn’t have much flavor and waters down the recipe. If you want more lemon flavor increase the lemon oil.
I am brand new at baking cakes and using frosting. I recently made this cake and it was delicious. I never got to frost it as the family ate it up. Thank you for a great recipe. I have some questions. Can this cake sit out at home temperature of 76F? And for how long? Also for the cake to be taken to someone else’s party traveling in an air conditioned car what type of frosting should be used? Thank you.
Fresh fruit cakes should be refrigerated at all times except before consuming. It can be left out for 2 hours at room temperature safely
Thank you very much for the reply. I appreciate it.
Can I use oil instead of butter?
Butter is important to the structure of the cake in this recipe.
Can we use raspberry jam instead of the raspberry filling or would that be too sweet?
Yes you can! So yummy
Would cranberries work in place of the raspberry?
Yes you can use cranberries
Hi Liz. Would you put the recipe in grms instead og oz? Thank you!!
Done!
Hi there,
This recipe looks amazing. I would like to use 9″ tins – can you please tell me how I should alter the measurements for the ingredients and the baking time.
Thank you so much!
No need to adjust 🙂 There is enough batter for two 9″ tins, they will just bake a little faster than the 8″ cakes
Hi Liz,
Just curious of a difference between this recipe and your Lemon cake recipe. I see you use milk here and buttermilk in the other one…is there a reason for not using buttermilk in this recipe as well? TIA 🙂
This is just an older recipe 🙂 You can definitely use buttermilk but update the baking powder/soda as well to work with the acidic levels of the buttermilk
in the cake recipe, do you weigh the liquid (milk, oil) ingredients? I have seen in discussions where some people say no and others that you weigh not the liquid and dry ingredients. Thank you for your time and generosity in sharing your knowledge.
I weigh everything. I do not use volume measurements.
Thank you so much for responding. I really appreciate it.
Liz, thanks again for another WONDERFUL recipe! I made this cake and frosting last week for an Auntie’s special birthday party. There were all types of homemade cakes at the event, many of her favorites. I must say thought, everyone was asking who make this cake and raved at how good it was! I was so proud!! I really loved the reversing creaming method and the texture of the cake. I added extra zest in the batter as I really wanted a lemon punch. The frosting was DIVINE! Smooth, velvety and not at all overly sweet which allowed the zing of the lemon and raspberries to really shine through. Believe it or not, I have a couple of orders to make this again!
Thanks again Liz for making me look good!!!
Loved this recipe. Only one problem………measurements in oz not cups. Was a little difficult converting exact measurements. Would love to make this cake again but in Canadian cups and how many eggs.
Made this for my son’s girlfriend’s birthday. She said it was the best Lemon Raspberry Cake she ever had.
We all really enjoyed this cake. Love love love the butter cream frosting.
Hi Janna, unfortunately, I only provide my recipes in oz. The reason is that measuring ingredients by weight is much more accurate and I hate to see people waste good ingredients using cups. A food scale can be purchased at most grocery stores 🙂
Hi Liz. I’m trying to make this recipe but am confused about a few things. The recipe calls for buttermilk but the video uses milk and there was a comment from someone asking if they could use buttermilk and you replied that they would have to adjust the baking soda/powder. Also the recipe calls for lemon extract, lemon zest and lemon juice but again, the video doesn’t show when to add the lemon juice and the recipe also doesn’t say to add it. Help! And thank you!
The recipe has been updated to include buttermilk. Lemon juice goes in with the buttermilk
I made this cake for my friend’s birthday and everyone loved it! Thank you for an amazing recipe! I will definitely will be making it again 🙂 I wish I could post a picture of how it came out.
This cake is so soft! I completely forgot the raspberries and I threw it in 20 minutes into baking . It still came out perfect!I wish I could post a picture!
Yay! Join our facebook group sugar geeks and post in there! I’d love to see!
What do you mean by 13 oz of cake flour? I always use cups.
Hi there, all my recipes are by weight. I don’t use cups because they are not accurate and are often the reason a recipe fails. You can use a food scale to weigh your ingredients.
What type do you prefer? digital or analog scale? I have a scale but it looks like the clock(lbs, g) not digital.
Can’t wait to make this for my friend this week! I noticed that “lemon extract” is listed in both the cake and the icing, but I also see vanilla extract listed in the directions for the Buttercream and then just “extract” for the cake. Which one should be used, vanilla extract or lemon extract? Thanks!
Lemon, not vanilla 🙂 I’ll fix that typo. Thanks!
So so helpful!!! It looks delicious, cannot wait to devour!!
Does this cake freeze well? I want to make it for my daughter’s birthday next weekend but my schedule is crazy at the end of the week. I was thinking I’d bake the cake this weekend, wrap it and freeze, then do the frosting Friday night or Saturday morning after the cake is defrosted. Thanks!
Yes you can freeze it.
I cannot wait to make this cake! Just a question on the buttercream ingredients. It says raspberry puree. Is that completely different than the raspberries in the other ingredients? Is it made separate or can it be bought already made?
It’s a separate recipe, It’s optional if you don’t want to make it 🙂 I just had some leftover so I used them for the inside and the drip
Hi! I’d love to make this cake for my birthday party this weekend. I wonder if you happen to have a cream cheese frosting recipe that I could use to substitute for the buttercream? I’m a sucker for cream cheese! Thank you!
Sure do, I have two in the frosting and filling section of my recipes
Hi! I have been waiting all year for my birthday to make this cake, but with a twist- custard and passionfruit curd filling and Italian buttercream frosting. I am mainly looking for a raspberry swirl cake and am wondering if you’ve ever made it without the lemon? I love lemon, but don’t want it to overpower the passionfruit. I would love to get your opinion on whether I should just cut back the lemon a bit or omit it all together? Your sponges are AMAZING and I am so grateful that you share your knowledge with all of us on the web- thank you so much!
You can definitely just leave out the lemon. If you want, I have a vanilla cake version of this recipe 🙂
Hi Liz! And thanks for sharing your knowledge! Could this cake be covered with fondant or will it melt? Thanks again!!!
Yes you can cover this cake in buttercream then a layer of fondant if you prefer
Hi Liz!
I have another question 😅 For buttercream in US customary it says 16oz of powdered sugar when in metrics it says 113g, but the reading some comments they mentioned they decrease that amount to 14oz so I understand is 16oz and of course not 113g but would like to get your confirmation before going ahead 😅 Thanks again!
I’m not sure why the powdered sugar was at that amount for grams but I fixed it 🙂 16 ounces is the correct amount
Hi Liz!
I have tried this recipe but sadly my sponges sucked badly in the middle. What have I done wrong?
Thanks
They could have been improperly mixed (not enough time) or ingredients could have been too cold or the cake could have been under-baked