Saturday, July 21, 2018

Lemon Sheet Cake #TheCakeSliceBakers

A little late to the party, but summer is never an easy time to find the right time to bake. As usual, we have a project for the house going on. This July it's a refurbishment of the back deck, which is a three level affair connected by steps. Sweetie and I built it together over 25 years ago, so it has aged enough to no longer be beautiful, nor totally safe.

Today we stopped early enough that I whipped up the Lemon Sheet Cake from The Perfect Cake cookbook (no 'buttermilk' in the title since I didn't use buttermilk). Except for using non-dairy margarine and soy creamer as substitutes for the butter and buttermilk, I followed the recipe exactly. Those substitutions are necessary if I'm going to eat any of the cake, and I soooo enjoyed this cake that I'm glad I did.


This cake is tender, moist and has a heavenly true lemon flavor. The crumb is fairly tight and the crust delicate. I love the lemon sugar glaze even though it does make the cake pretty sweet. The sprinkle of lemon zest enriched granulated sugar over the glaze adds just the right touch of crunch, and even more lemon appeal and sweetness.

Allow some time at the beginning to zest and juice the lemons...takes 5-10 minutes, but is well worth the effort. Otherwise this is a fairly basic cake recipe where you cream the butter with the sugar that has been enriched with the lemon zest, then you add eggs, then the dry ingredients in three parts and the wet ingredients in two parts, with the dry added last. Using cake flour is wonderful since it makes the cake delicate and tender.


I know that quite a few Cake Slice Bakers also make this recipe. Who can blame them? This cake if just fine by itself and even better with a few ripe strawberries or raspberries or blackberries or blueberries and since this is berry season that's easy to do. I added a few  strawberries from our garden and it was the perfect summer treat with the luscious lemon cake!


Do visit the other Cake Slice Bakers to see how their cakes turned out. There is at least on who did the cake pops and one who did the almond meringue layers with fruit. No recipe, but do consider buying the book because every recipe so far has been flawless.


Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through.  This year it is The Perfect Cake from America's Test Kitchen #atkcake.  We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook,  Instagram, and  Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes, or visit our blog where the links are updated each month. If you are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.
The Cake Slice Bakers are baking from a new book "The Perfect Cake" from America's Test Kitchen.

Our choices this month are...
  1. Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake
  2. Apricot-Almond Meringue Cake
  3. Refined Strawberry Shortcake
  4. Party Cake Pops
Visit our members to see what cake choice they baked up! 

3 comments :

  1. I have some strawberries waiting to be eaten with this cake. Good idea! Good luck on your deck.

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  2. This was an amazing cake. No wonder it was highly favored by everyone! Glad you loved it too.

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  3. Elle your cake looks delicious! It certainly was a popular one in our group this month, and for good reason. I saw that you were re-building your deck, so thanks for taking the time to join in this month.

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