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This easy recipe for a made from scratch layered Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting yields a delicious, tender and moist lemon cake.
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Treat your family and friends and end your meal with this fabulous Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. This lemon cake hits all the musts, it’s moist, tender, perfectly lemony and sweet but not overly so.
Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
This Lemon Poppy Seed Cake is simple to make and requires basic baking ingredients. Poppy seeds are used in this recipe to give the cake a bit of texture, but you don’t need to use them if you don’t like them or don’t have any at home.
The cake portion of this recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart’s recipe for this lemon cake. She layers her cake with lemon curd so the cake portion itself doesn’t contain enough lemon flavour. So I’ve added lemon juice and more zest to the cake batter to give the cake an extra pop of lemon flavour.
This cake is frosted with a luscious lemon-infused cream cheese frosting. To make the frosting you’ll need cream cheese (brick style), butter, confectioners’ (icing) sugar, a touch of cream or milk, vanilla extract, fresh lemon juice and zest. The tender lemon flavoured cake combined with the lemony cream cheese frosting is amazing together!
If you need a good reason to make this cake and consume all those calories, Mother’s Day is coming up. So if your mama loves lemon desserts make her this cake, you’ll both be happy you did!
More Delicious Lemony Baked Goods
Ingredients
Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
- 3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3 tbsp. poppy seeds
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs lightly beaten
- 1 cup unsalted butter (more for cake pans) softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup buttermilk See notes on how to make your own
- 1/2 cup sour cream full-fat
- 5 tbsp. lemon juice from 2 medium sized lemons
- 1-1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp. lemon zest from 3 medium sized lemons
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
- 250 grams full-fat cream cheese 1 package, softened
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter softened
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar (powdered sugar)
- 1-2 tbsp. heavy cream, half and half or milk
- 1 tbsp. lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp. lemon zest
Instructions
Lemon Poppy Seed Cake:
- Place an oven rack in the middle of your oven and preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Butter two 8-by-2-inch round cake pans; line with parchment rounds, and butter parchment. Dust with flour, tapping out excess.
- Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk in the poppy seeds. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed 1 to 2 minutes until creamy.
- Gradually add the granulated sugar, and beat until butter is pale and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula a couple of times.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream and buttermilk.
- Slowly add the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and sour cream mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat until just combined. Mix in lemon juice, vanilla and lemon zest.
- Divide batter evenly between prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Start checking at 30 minutes to avoid over-baking.
- Transfer the cake pans to wire racks to cool for approximately 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edges and turn out cakes onto racks to cool completely.
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- In the bowl of your mixer, on medium-high speed, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth.
- Add the cream or milk, lemon juice, and vanilla extract. Beat for 1 more minute then add one cup of confectioner sugar at a time until you have the desired consistency (I used 4 cups). Aadd the lemon zest and beat until incorporated.
Assembling and frosting the cake:
- Using a serrated knife, trim the top off the first cake layer to create a flat surface. Place that layer (trimmed side down) on your cake stand and evenly spread the top with cream cheese frosting. Top the first layer with the second and spread the cream cheese frosting on the top and sides of the cake.
- Keep frosted cake refrigerated. Remove from refrigerator about 15 minutes before serving.
Notes
- I used two 8×2 inch pans for this cake, the batter filled the pans close to the top but it did not overflow when baking, if you prefer you could make this in two 9×2 pans but the baking time will not be as long, I recommend you checking on it at 25 minutes if you choose to do so.
- This cake can be baked a day ahead of time and frosted on the day of serving. Once frosted keep the cake refrigerated.
- When making layered cakes, I always like to weigh my pans so that I know I have the same amount of batter in each, this way you get even layers.
- One medium sized lemon will yield approximately 2 to 3 tablespoons of lemon juice.
- One medium sized lemon will yield approximately 1 tablespoon of lemon zest.
- The typical measurement to make your own buttermilk substitute at home is to add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to a liquid measuring glass and to fill the glass with milk until you reach 1 cup. Since this recipe calls for 3/4 cup buttermilk, I measured 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and filled my cup with milk until it reached 3/4 cup. Stir the milk and let it sit for 5 minutes before using in the recipe. Please note you need milk with at least 1% milk fat to make your own buttermilk substitute.
This looks super tasty!! I can’t wait to give it a try! It’s all delicious ingredients 🙂
Thank you! It’s one of my favourites on the blog! Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions about making it. Take care!
I made this for my daughter’s wedding cake and everyone Loved it! Great recipe.
That’s wonderful, so happy to hear that! Thanks so much for leaving a comment to let me know.
Hi just wondering about the sour cream. It’s on the ingridents list but not in the step by step instructions.
Hi Lauren,
Thanks so much for bringing that to my attention, I’ve made the correction to the directions.
Learning new recipes is not easy it takes time to achieve that perfect level but if you have good guide everything is possible. Thank You
This looks so good! I love lemon poppy seed cake but have never had it with a cream cheese frosting. Will try this soon.
Thanks Louise, the cream cheese frosting goes so perfectly with this cake. I hope you enjoy it!
What a beautiful cake-looks so delicious!
Thank you Nancy, it’s really a fabulous cake!
Oh my goodness that is a beautiful cake, the crumb is perfection and I LOVE poppy seeds and lemon. Beautiful!!
Thanks Suzanne! I’m having serious cravings for this cake and I can’t wait to make it again!