Lemon Poppyseed Cake. A tender layer cake recipe brightened with lemon juice, lemon zest and poppy seeds, frosted with a tangy sweet lemon cream cheese frosting.
The weather here has been up, down and everywhere in between. Just when it feels like the heavy cast of winter is lifting, it comes back with gusto. But the occasional warm day brings sunshine, a break to the grey monotony, and a refreshing reminder… that spring is coming!
This Lemon Poppy Seed Cake is everything you want in a spring dessert. Fresh lemon awakens the senses while the soft yellow hue builds naturally from a hefty dose of lemon zest. The influx of poppy seeds not only gives the cake layers a beautiful speckled appearance, but a slightly nutty flavor that only poppy seeds can deliver. A few extra seeds sprinkled on top creates a quick and easy crescent backdrop for our edible flowers. While I chose to brighten the muted yellows with vibrant mini sun daisies, the color tones of this cake could easily sway towards pastels suited for Easter. As is, it would look beautiful next to a large vase of yellow tulips.
And then comes the cream cheese frosting. Oh my gosh, it’s good. This is my favorite lemon cream cheese buttercream from my lemon blueberry cake, but with a few tweaks. I changed up the ratio of cream cheese to butter to allow this frosting to have a bit more body than the lemon blueberry cake. While this reduces the tang a tad because there’s less cream cheese, the overall taste is still delicious and the resulting frosting is a little stiffer and easier to decorate with. Still, by no means is this a “decorator’s frosting”– it’s not overly sweet nor is it a good candidate intricate piping work. For best results, be sure to use a block-style cream cheese, like Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Any cream cheese that comes in a tub will be too soft and you’ll have more of a glaze than a frosting. If you prefer a tangier lemon frosting, revert back to this cream cheese frosting recipe instead.
Lemon Poppyseed Cake
A tender layer cake recipe brightened with lemon juice, lemon zest and poppy seeds, frosted with a tangy sweet lemon cream cheese frosting.
- Yield: One 8" Round Cake (3 layers)
- Category: ✽ ✽ ✽
Ingredients
For the Lemon Poppy Seed Cake:
- 3 cups cake flour, spooned and leveled (336g)
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons organic lemon zest, about 3–4 lemons
- 8 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons poppy seeds
For the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 12 ounces cream cheese, block style
- 8 ounces unsalted butter, slightly softened but still cold
- 4 ounces salted butter, slightly softened but still cold
- 4–6 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon organic lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
For the Assembly:
- Lemon slices
- Poppy Seeds
- Edible flowers (optional)
Instructions
Make the Lemon Poppy Seed Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350. Butter and lightly flour three 8″ round pans. Line with parchment paper circles.
- Whisk together 3 cups cake flour, baking powder and salt. Add lemon zest and whisk again. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine milk and lemon juice. Stir to combine and set aside for milk to curdle. This is similar to making homemade buttermilk.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high using the paddle attachment. Beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down bowl.
- With the mixer on low, add eggs one at a time. Mix well after each egg.
- Add vanilla extract. Mix to combine.
- Add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Do not over mix.
- Add poppy seeds and mix to combine. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl and the mixer blade. Batter will be thick and fluffy.
- Divide batter evenly between the three 8″ round pans. Smooth tops with rubber spatula or knife to evenly distribute batter in the pan.
- Bake for 25-27 minutes, until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
- Let cool in pans for 10 to 15 minutes, then remove to wire rack to finish cooling.
Make the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and cream cheese until smooth.
- Add vanilla, lemon zest and juice and mix until combined.
- Gradually add confectioners sugar, adjusting amount, until desired sweetness is reached. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Whip on medium until smooth and slightly fluffy. Overmixing will result in a thinner frosting because the butter and cream cheese will be too warm and soft.
Assemble the Cake:
- Place one layer of cake onto serving plate or cake stand and top with about one cup of lemon cream cheese frosting. Repeat with second cake layer, more frosting and then last layer of cake. Crumb coat and frost cake with remaining frosting.
- If desired, create soft swirls in the frosting by lightly placing the tip of an offset spatula against the frosting while spinning the turntable. Your spatula will naturally move up the side of the cake, leaving a imprinted swirl.
- Decorate with lemon slices, a sprinkle of poppy seeds and edible flowers, if desired.
- Store in refrigerator. Serve at room temperature.
Notes
- Be careful not to pack flour into the measuring cups. Too much flour can result is a heavy and overly dense cake. 3 cups of cake flour is 336g when properly measured. If you do not have a scale, spooning flour into the measuring cup and then leveling off the excess is the next best way to measure.
- When finished mixing the cake batter, be sure to scrape down the mixer blade to grab all the lemon zest that has accumulated. Fold back into the cake batter before diving into pans.
- You may bake this as two full-sized 8″ round cake layers. Alternatively, I baked it as three intentionally shorter 8″ round layers – this saves time and effort because the shorter layers do not need to be torted. The resulting layers are approximately 1.25 inches tall. If only using two pans, be sure to only fill them 2/3 of the way full to prevent overflowing.
- I do not recommend substituting 2% or skim milk in the cake batter. This recipe needs the fat from the whole milk.
- If frosting is too thin after whipping, refrigerate for 30 minutes before assembling cake. The chilled frosting will have a thicker consistency. For an even thicker consistency, add additional confectioners’ sugar as desired.
- I used edible micro sun daisies for the decoration. Add the flowers just before serving as they will wilt over time, especially when refrigerated.
MORE LEMON CAKE RECIPES TO TRY:
Hi Carrie
This cake looks so good and I am going to bake it next week. I just want to make sure that the temperature is 350F? If I convert it to degree celsius it is 194.4. Could this be correct? I want a perfect cake.
Hi Colette – yes, the baking temperature is 350F. Converted to celsius it would be 176C. Hope you love this recipe! Enjoy!
Lovely cake and frosting.
Great recipe.
Thanks for your feedback Mike. Glad you enjoyed!
I just made the cake. Looks and smells amazing…so far. Unfortunately, time restraints are not giving me enough time to make the frosting and frost the cake today. Can I refrigerate the cakes and assemble tomorrow?
Yes absolutely Linda! Just wrap the cake layers individually in plastic wrap and store them in the refrigerator. I often bake one day and then make the frosting/decorate the next day. Hope you love it!
That’s what I did and it came out great. It was my son’s pick for his 21st B’day cake. Unfortunately, it got cut up and eaten before I remembered that I didn’t take a picture. I am new at this baking thing and I must say your recipe was a success! My layers were perfect and the taste was spot on. I’ve tried several Lemon cakes and they have not been successful. Now I’m looking forward to trying your Blueberry Lemon …sounds yummy! Thanks so much
LEMON POPPYSEED CAKE is looking delicious and tasty .. I will try this for my son he just loves cake recipes and for me, it’s looking different because of poppy seeds and lemon usage in it.
Hey, I’m about to make this cake for my moms birthday because it looks great, but I’m a little worried about the frosting. It usually is too thin, I think it might be the ingredients since i live in Austria and I’m not sure the cream cheese we have here will be thick enough. Do you have a tip on how to thicken it without using too much sugar?
Thanks 🙂
If I want to serve this cake to 20 people, can I make it in a rectangle pan instead of a three layer 8″ circle pan? And if so will the baking time vary?
Carrie, it looks awesome! So much flavors packed on this recipe that makes this simply irresistible, definitely having this on my table!
CARRIE, what a gorgeous cake! Your directions make this seem like such an easy approach, too. I would love to make this soon!
This looks amazing! Thank you, I will try this right away)
The frosting and overall taste of this recipe were delightful! however, my cake turned out very dry and dense. Do you know where I could have gone wrong? I am thinking maybe over mixing the eggs, but I tried very hard not to. Thanks!
Can I make this recipe and bake it in a 1/2 sheet cake pan?
Carrie, it looks so yummy! I love the step-by-step instructions, making it an easy recipe to follow!
This cake was a complete disaster for me! Experienced baker and followed the directions exactly. Wasted a lot of ingredients and time! It bubbled up and over the 3 tins then fell flat as a pancake and burned. Weird after taste to the remaining mess. No idea what went wrong… Very sad 😔
Made the cake exactly per the directions and it tasted delicious and looked beautiful. Even used your technique with the frosting, so cake was really cute – sorry, totally forgot to take pictures! I made this as a tester for my daughter’s wedding cake and put raspberry filling in it. She loved it but we both agreed it was a little too dense for a wedding cake (the density would have been perfect for a loaf cake). Also, the frosting was delicious but as you mentioned, a bit soft for holding up to a filling (I pipe the edges to create a ‘well’) – it worked pretty well but I had to add a LOT of confectioners sugar to get it there, just as you suggested. So, a bit too sweet for us. If I added more butter, would that give it more stability? Thank you!!
I made this cake last night for my daughter’s second birthday and I loved it. It was a hit with the family. Loves how the lemon flavor came out and the poppy seed adds a texture to the cake. The only drawback for me was the frosting. I don’t think it was necessary to put both salted and unsalted butter. And for some reason my cream cheese frosting was too runny. Maybe because there was cream cheese, salted butter and unsalted butter. I could be wrong. But over all the flavors were awesome.
Excited to try this! Question – do you put all three cake pans in at the same time? I’m assuming they should all be on the same shelf in a triangle so they cook evenly? Also, would it be OK if I made the cake tonight and frosted it tomorrow? Or would it be OK if I made it all tonight? Should I refrigerate the entire frosted cake overnight if I am not serving until tomorrow?
All good questions Jenny! Yes, you’ll bake all three pans at the same time on the same shelf. And yes you can bake the cake in advance – just wrap the cake layers in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator. If you want to bake the cake and assemble it in advance, just store it in the refrigerator. Enjoy!
Could I possibly make this cake without poppy seeds?
I really wanted to like this cake but unfortunately I found the sponge to be gummy and dense. And the icing wasn’t that nice either. It wasn’t as white as shown in the picture and the taste was so so only. Pity.
Amazing recipe ☺☺😍 it was delicious thank u so much for sharing!
well documented. thanks
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