Lemon Velvet Cake

By XrayKim

Developed from an outstanding Red Velvet Cake recipe, this lemon cake is a
perfectly moist and tender crumbed cake with a lemony buttercream
frosting. An ideal birthday cake for the lemon lover in your life.

Ingredients

• Icing:
• 1 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon good quality vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoon pure lemon extract
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• zest of two small or one large lemons, grated and finely chopped
• 8 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar)
• 2 cups unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon pure lemon extract
• 1 teaspoon minced lemon zest (optional)
• aproximately 4 tbsp milk

Details

Servings 12
Preparation time 20mins
Cooking time 55mins
Adapted from rockrecipes.com

Preparation

Step 1

Grease and flour 2 nine inch round cake pans and line the bottom with 2 circles of parchment paper. Sift together both flours, baking soda. baking powder, salt and sugar, Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, shortening, vanilla and lemon extract. Beat well at high speed with whisk attachment until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs in one at a time.

Fold in the lemon zest. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk.
I always add dry ingredients in three divisions and liquid ingredients in 2 divisions. It is very important to begin and end the additions with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, pour into the two prepared 9 inch cake pans.
Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Frosting:
Mix together the icing sugar, lemon zest and butter until it becomes sort of crumbly.
Add the lemon extract and a little of the milk.
Beat until smooth and fluffy, adding only enough milk to bring the frosting to a creamy spreadable consistency.
Fill and frost the cake. Garnish with candied lemon zest if desired.
To make candied lemon zest, remove the zest with a sharp vegetable peeler in long strips, avoiding as much of the white pith as possible.
Bring one cup of water and one cup of sugar to a slow boil.
Add the pieces of lemon zest and boil for about 15 minutes. Drain the lemon zest on a wire rack.
When cool, cut them in strips and roll in fine sugar.