This high altitude lemon blueberry layer cake starts with three layers of soft lemon cake, made with fresh lemon zest and lemon juice. The cake is frosted with fluffy blueberry buttercream, and decorated with fresh lilacs.
You might also love these high altitude recipes for lemon blueberry loaf cake, no bake lemon blueberry cheesecake, and lemon pudding poke cake.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Easy to Make. Just whisk together the wet and dry ingredients to quickly make the cake batter.
Perfect Texture. This lemon cake is light and fluffy, with a soft, delicate crumb. It’s moist, soft, and beautifully lemony, with a perfect balance of sweet and tart flavors. And the pretty, pale yellow color looks like sunshine!
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Lemons. You’ll need fresh lemons, since you’ll be using both the zest and the juice. When you rub fresh lemon zest into sugar, it adds so much lemon flavor to your cake. And the acidity from the lemon juice gives the cake a soft, tender texture. Always, zest the lemons first, before you juice them.
- Cake Flour. Since cake flour has a lower percentage of protein than all purpose flour, it makes a very light and fluffy cake, and I highly recommend using it in this recipe. I usually use Swan’s Down Cake Flour, and it works wonderfully.
- Blueberry Jam. For the buttercream, you’ll need blueberry jam, which will give the buttercream its flavor and pretty lavender color. I used Bonne Maman Blueberry Preserves, and since it has small bits of blueberries in the jam, I pureed it first to make it as smooth as possible. For more blueberry flavor, you can add some jam between each cake layer as you frost and assemble the cake.
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line three 8-inch cake pans with circles of parchment paper in the bottoms of the pans, and spray the paper with non-stick spray. The baked cakes are sticky, and you should not skip this step of lining your pans with parchment paper.
- In a measuring cup, stir together the lemon juice and milk; set aside for about 15 minutes to let the milk curdle.
- Measure the sugar into a large bowl, and zest the lemons over the sugar. Use your fingers to rub the lemon zest into the sugar to really infuse the lemon flavor.
- Set a fine mesh strainer over the sugar, and sift in the flour, baking powder and salt, then whisk together the dry ingredients with the lemon sugar.
- To the dry ingredients, add the lemon juice/milk mixture, eggs, egg whites, sour cream, oil, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth, about 30 seconds.
- Divide the batter between the pans. Bake for 28-32 minutes, until a cake tester in the center of the cakes comes out clean and the tops spring back when lightly touched. Set the pans on a wire rack, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for one minute until smooth. Scrape the bowl down. With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar, meringue powder and salt, mixing to combine. Add the vanilla.
- Beat on medium high for about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl down occasionally, until very light and fluffy. Add the jam (if the jam is chunky, you can blitz it first in a small food processor or ninja to smooth it out), and mix on low for one minute. Add the milk, only if needed for desired consistency.
- Remove the cooled cakes from the pans. Fill and frost the cooled cakes with the buttercream.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common questions with cake making, so that you can be successful in your own baking! I also suggest reading these comprehensive posts on making Perfect American Buttercream, How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost Layer Cakes and How to Use Piping Bags.
Frequently Asked Questions
With a lower percentage of protein than all purpose flour, cake flour will produce a lighter, softer, fluffier cake.
You can use bottled lemon juice in your cake, but since you need fresh lemon zest anyway, you should use the zest and juice from your lemons.
These cakes are extremely light and fluffy, and will stick to your cake pans if you don’t line them with parchment paper. Line the pans with a circle of parchment paper, and spray with non-stick spray to ensure easy release.
It will stay moist and soft for 3-5 days, if stored in an airtight container or cake carrier.
Please see this post for my lemon cake with lemon buttercream recipe.
This recipe for lemon cake is too delicate, and the batter too thin to support and suspend blueberries throughout the cake. If you want a cake with blueberries mixed into the cake, I suggest using the base cake recipe for this blackberry cake instead. You could also try using the recipe for my lemon blueberry loaf cake, which would need to be doubled to make enough for a layer cake. This is a more dense cake, not light and fluffy like today’s lemon cake recipe.
You Might Also Like
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High Altitude Lemon Blueberry Layer Cake
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- 8 inch round cake pans (x3)
Ingredients
Cake
- ½ cup lemon juice, fresh or bottled
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- zest of 2 small lemons
- 2 ¾ cups cake flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 3 large eggs
- 2 large egg whites (save the extra yolks for another use)
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Buttercream
- 2 cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp meringue powder (optional)
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 4-6 tbsp blueberry jam
- 2-3 tbsp milk, if needed
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line three 8-inch cake pans with circles of parchment paper in the bottoms of the pans, and spray the paper with non-stick spray. The baked cakes are sticky, and you should not skip this step of lining your pans with parchment paper.
- In a measuring cup, stir together the lemon juice and milk; set aside for about 15 minutes to let the milk curdle.
- Measure the sugar into a large bowl, and zest the lemons over the sugar. Use your fingers to rub the lemon zest into the sugar to really infuse the lemon flavor.
- Set a fine mesh strainer over the sugar, and sift in the flour, baking powder and salt, then whisk together the dry ingredients with the lemon sugar.
- To the dry ingredients, add the lemon juice/milk mixture, eggs, egg whites, sour cream, oil, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth, about 30 seconds.
- Divide the batter between the pans. Bake for 28-32 minutes, until a cake tester in the center of the cakes comes out clean and the tops spring back when lightly touched. Set the pans on a wire rack, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for one minute until smooth. Scrape the bowl down. With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar, meringue powder and salt, mixing to combine. Add the vanilla.
- Beat on medium high for about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl down occasionally, until very light and fluffy. Add the jam (if the jam is chunky, you can blitz it first in a small food processor or ninja to smooth it out), and mix on low for one minute. Add the milk, only if needed for desired consistency.
- Remove the cooled cakes from the pans. Fill and frost the cooled cakes with the buttercream.
Video
Notes
- I’ve only made this recipe using cake flour, and it produces a very light, fluffy cake. All-purpose flour will not give you quite the same result, but should still be fine. Be sure to sift the flour to get out any lumps.
- It’s a good idea to set out your dairy products (eggs, milk, sour cream) an hour or two before you mix your batter, to let them come to room temperature. Large eggs can vary in size, but they should average about 1/4 cup each in volume; three large eggs plus two whites should fill one cup. If your eggs are on the small side, add another to get a full cup.
- Lemons also can vary in size, as well as how much juice they contain. You might need 4 small lemons to get 1/2 cup of juice for the cake batter.
- These cakes are extremely light and fluffy, and will stick to your cake pans if you don’t line them with parchment paper. Take this extra step to ensure easy release.
- For a Lemon Poppyseed Cake, add two tablespoons poppy seeds to the dry cake ingredients.
- To add even more tart lemony goodness, you can spread a bit of lemon curd between each cake layer, or you can add a layer of blueberry jam between the cakes.
- Be sure to review my Baking FAQs for my other tips on cake baking.
- This cake will stay moist for days if stored in an airtight container or cake carrier.
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