This easy and moist Lemon Snack Cake is topped with a fluffy cream cheese frosting, making it the perfect spring dessert.
If you don’t have patience for decorating cakes, this easy 8×8-inch cake recipe is for you! It comes together quickly and still looks beautiful without the fussy layers. It’s the perfect cake recipe to serve for Easter, Mother’s Day, or your next backyard BBQ.
Table of Contents
There’s No Layering or Piping Required in This Easy Recipe
While I consider myself to be a very good baker, I am hopeless when it comes to decorating cakes! I have none of the patience required to bring a layer cake to fruition. But, I still really love cake in general so I tend to opt for single layer cakes or snack cakes — still delicious, but with way less work!
This lemon snack cake is honestly so, so perfect. It’s got so much fresh lemon flavor (without any fake extract flavors!) and the crumb is perfectly tender and moist. The fluffy cream cheese frosting pairs beautifully with the lemon flavor.
It would be a hit at any backyard BBQ or as a special dessert for Easter or Mother’s Day!
Key Ingredient Notes
You can find the full list of ingredients, quantities, and method in the recipe card at the end of the page.
- Cake flour. All-purpose will work too, but cake flour produces a more tender crumb. In a pinch, you can make your own cake flour using AP flour and cornstarch (King Arthur has a tutorial on how to do this).
- Baking powder + baking soda. Check the expiration dates on both; if they’ve expired, your lemon cake won’t rise.
- Granulated sugar. I do not recommend adjusting the amount of sugar to make the cake less sweet. Sugar helps aerate the batter when beaten with the butter, and it also provides moisture believe it or not.
- Lemon zest. 2 heaping tablespoons gives the cake a bright lemony flavor.
- Buttermilk + sour cream. Work together to give the cake a super tender crumb, plus they add lots of moisture.
- Eggs. Set them in a bowl of warm tap water for about 5 minutes to bring them to room temperature.
- Oil. Use a neutral oil, such as canola oil, vegetable oil, or sunflower oil.
- Vanilla bean paste. Has a stronger flavor than regular vanilla extract, but extract may be used if that’s all you have!
- Cream cheese frosting. My whipped cream cheese frosting is made with softened cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and heavy cream.
Tools Needed
An Overview of How This Lemon Snack Cake Is Made
- Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately. This is the only surefire way to prevent clumps and to make sure the leavening agents get distributed evenly throughout the batter.
- Rub the lemon zest into the sugar, then beat with the butter. Rubbing the zest into the sugar releases its fragrant oils and gives the cake a stronger lemon flavor. When beating together the lemon sugar and butter, you want it to get super fluffy. This will take a good 4 minutes, so don’t skip this step!
- Add the eggs to the butter mixture. Mix them into the butter and sugar just until combined. If you over-whip the eggs, you’ll add too much air into the batter.
- Alternate adding in the wet and dry ingredients. Adding the wet and dry ingredients in alternating increments makes for the smoothest cake batter and prevents the gluten in the cake flour from being overworked.
- Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. After baking, let the buttermilk lemon snack cake cool completely before removing from the pan.
- Frost the cooled cake. You’re welcome to prep the frosting in advance and refrigerate it until you’re ready to use it.
Jenny’s Tips for Making This Snack Cake
Carefully measure your flour. The number one reason why a cake turns out too dry or too dense is because flour is often measured wrong. DO NOT use your measuring cup to scoop flour as this compacts the flour and gives you more than you need. Use a spoon to spoon the flour into a measuring cup over the top of the lip, then use a knife or offset spatula to level off the top.
Make sure your ingredients are room temperature. This isn’t just a suggestion that bakers give you for no reason. Room temperature ingredients blend more easily and ensure that your cake batter is perfectly mixed and emulsified.
Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. You may need to beat the butter and sugar for a full 3-4 minutes to get it really fluffy. This also ensures that your cake doesn’t end up flat and dense.
Don’t overmix the flour. At the end of mixing in the dry ingredients, we switch to a rubber spatula to fold in the last bits of flour. This keeps you from over-mixing the batter which will end up in a dense and heavy cake.
Don’t over-bake. As much as I can give you estimated baking times, every oven, house, and climate is different. Check on your cake after 30 minutes or so and only bake until a cake tester comes out with a couple of moist crumbs attached. This cake has a delicate crumb and over-baking it will lead to a sad and dry cake.
How to Adapt This Recipe for Other Pan Sizes
While I find the 8×8-inch size to be perfect for me and my husband, you may want to make modifications to the recipe for size variations. If you don’t have an 8×8-inch metal baking pan, this recipe can also be baked in a 9-inch round cake pan without any major changes.
To make a larger 9×13 sheet cake, double the recipe. You can also double the recipe and bake it in three 8-inch round cake pans (if you’re a layer cake person!). You’ll have to adjust the baking times up or down accordingly.
The frosting can be doubled, or even tripled, as needed.
If you do give this recipe a try, I love hearing about it! Leave a comment with a star rating below. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter and never miss a new recipe! You can also snap a photo & tag @JENNYGOYCOCHEA on Instagram.
More Single Layer Cake Recipes to Make
- Chocolate Whiskey Cake
- Almond Ricotta Cake
- Guinness Chocolate Cake
- Banana Coffee Cake
- Sour Cream Coffee Cake Loaf
- Citrus Olive Oil Cake
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Lemon Snack Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 2/3 cups cake flour, spooned and leveled
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (4 oz / 1 stick)
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 3/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature
- 1/4 cup sour cream, room temperature
- 2 tablespoons neutral oil
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 2-3 drops yellow gel food coloring (optional)
Frosting
- 1/2 cup cream cheese, room temperature (4 oz)
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (4 oz / 1 stick)
- 4 cups powdered sugar, scooped and leveled
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 350ºF. Grease and line a metal 8×8-inch baking pan with parchment paper so that there’s overhang over two sides. This makes extracting the cake from the pan much easier.Â
- Mix the dry ingredients. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together and set aside.
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, oil, and vanilla bean paste and set aside.
- Beat the butter and sugar together. Combine the sugar and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl. Use your fingers to rub the lemon zest into the sugar until it’s very fragrant. Add the butter and use a hand mixer to cream the butter and sugar together until it’s very fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Beat the eggs in, one at a time, until smooth. Add the yellow food coloring here if you’re using it.
- Alternate in the wet and dry ingredients. Alternate between adding the dry and wet ingredients. Mix in 1/3 of the flour mixture, then half of the buttermilk mixture. Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredients and then the rest of the liquid ingredients. Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the remaining 1/3 of the flour mixture until the batter is smooth and no streaks of flour remain.
- Spread the batter in the pan and bake. Use a small offset spatula to evenly spread the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes, just until a cake tester comes out coated with a few moist crumbs. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool for 30 minutes before inverting it onto a serving plate. Leave the parchment paper in place on the cake until the cake has cooled completely.
- Make the frosting. In a mixing bowl, combine the softened butter, vanilla, and cream cheese and use a hand mixer to beat them together for 2 minutes, until smooth. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar, adding cream as necessary when the mixture gets too thick. Whip the frosting until it’s smooth and spreadable. Remove the parchment paper from the cooled cake and spread the frosting evenly all over the cake.
Storage Instructions
- To store: The frosted cake can be cut into pieces and stored in a clean airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. You can refrigerate the cake, if necessary, but I find that it dries out more quickly in the fridge.To freeze: If you bake the cake in advance, you can freeze it by wrapping the cake tightly in plastic wrap and storing in the freezer for up to 1 month. Defrost the cake at room temperature before frosting.
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