Real Recipes From Real Home Cooks ®

southern lemon white cake with lemon curd

(4 ratings)
Blue Ribbon Recipe by
Maggie May Schill
Jacksonville, FL

Lemons were on sale. So besides mixing them up with kumquats to make my friend some kumquat cake, I also started messing with my recipe for traditional Southern-style white cake. You see I saw the movie Django a few weeks ago and at Monsieur Candy's plantation, they were serving white cake. I had an odd conversation with a friend after that who didn't know what white cake was. So I felt very compelled to make a white cake... but I also have all these lemons you see. So what I ended up with is lemon white cake. YUM!

Blue Ribbon Recipe

Wow, this lemon white cake is phenomenal. Dense and moist, the cake's not overly sweet. The tart lemon curd helps to balance out the sweetness of the buttercream frosting. This will be a show stopper on any dessert table. It's fantastic!

— The Test Kitchen @kitchencrew
(4 ratings)
yield 10 serving(s)
prep time 30 Min
cook time 30 Min
method Bake

Ingredients For southern lemon white cake with lemon curd

  • FOR WHITE CAKE
  • 3 c
    cake flour
  • 2 Tbsp
    baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp
    salt
  • 2 1/2 c
    sugar
  • 1 1/2 c
    (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 8 lg
    egg whites
  • 1 c
    cream
  • 1/4 c
    lemon juice, fresh
  • 2 Tbsp
    lemon zest, fresh
  • 2 Tbsp
    pure vanilla extract
  • FOR LEMON CURD
  • 3 lg
    egg yolks
  • 8 Tbsp
    sugar
  • 4 Tbsp
    unsalted butter, divided
  • 1/4 c
    lemon juice, fresh
  • 1 Tbsp
    lemon zest, fresh
  • FOR SOUTHERN BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
  • 1 c
    (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 tsp
    pure vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp
    lemon juice, fresh
  • 3 c
    confectioner's sugar

How To Make southern lemon white cake with lemon curd

  • Two cake pans greased and lined with parchment paper.
    1
    Preheat oven to 350'F. Grease and line with parchment 2 9-inch round cake pans. Be sure to grease parchment as well once it is laid in pans.
  • Letting the curd thicken up on the stove.
    2
    For curd: In a small saucepan combine egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Heat over medium heat for 5-7 minutes, be sure to stir mixture almost continuously. Once the mixture becomes thick enough that it sticks to your spoon almost like a syrup remove from heat and stir in one tablespoon of butter at a time until all 4 tablespoons are completely dissolved. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours at least. You can store it for 2 days at the most. Side note: If you lay the plastic wrap directly against the lemon curd while it sets you won't get that weird skin curds and pudding always get while they set typically. It'll make it easier to mix and spread on your cake later.
  • Mixing all the dry ingredients together.
    3
    For cake: In a large mixing bowl, sift cake flour, salt, and baking powder together; set aside.
  • Creaming butter, sugar, and lemon zest together.
    4
    In another large mixing bowl, cream together butter, 2 cups of sugar and lemon zest until completely creamy.
  • 1 cup of cream poured into a measuring cup.
    5
    In a measuring cup pour 1 cup of cream. Mix it with vanilla extract and lemon juice; set aside.
  • Whisking egg whites to soft peaks.
    6
    In another large mixing bowl, whisk egg whites vigorously. Gradually add 1/2 cup of sugar as you whisk. Bring egg whites up to soft peaks. Be sure to not overwhip or whites will separate.
  • Wet and dry ingredients incorporated.
    7
    Add flour to creamed butter mixture in thirds, adding cream mixture to batter in between adding your flour. In all, you will interchange adding three batches of flour and two batches of the cream. Completely incorporate, but do not over mix.
  • Slowly folding in egg whites.
    8
    Gradually fold egg whites into batter until completely incorporated.
  • Cake pans filled with batter.
    9
    Pour out into greased lined cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until just golden on top.
  • Cakes cooling after being baked.
    10
    Cool cakes on wire wrack for 1 hour and turn out of pans to completely cool.
  • Whipping together ingredients for the buttercream.
    11
    For buttercream frosting: In a mixing bowl, cream butter until fluffy. Gradually add confectioner's sugar until completely incorporated. Add vanilla and lemon juice and whip until smooth. Set aside.
  • Topping one of the lemon cakes with lemon curd.
    12
    Once cakes are completely cooled, level any doming off with a serrated knife or cake leveler. Place one cake on a cake board and spread lemon curd on top of it.
  • Southern lemon white cake with lemon curd completely frosted.
    13
    Stack second cake on the first, and frost as desired with buttercream.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT