Pink Lemonade Cake
This Pink Lemonade Cake is moist, tangy and the perfect summertime treat! Made from scratch with no frozen lemonade concentrate, this easy layer cake is covered in lemon buttercream frosting and celebrates your favorite summertime drink with its bright pink cake color.
EASY PINK LEMONADE CAKE
Who doesn’t love pink lemonade? Now take your favorite poolside summer drink and whip it up into cake form and you have the ultimate summertime dessert.
All that being said, Pink Lemonade Cake is the one recipe that I have had on my to-do list for two years now. The day finally comes and I realize that the majority of pink lemonade cakes are made with pink lemonade frozen concentrate which .. much to my surprise .. is no longer sold in my area.
Thanks, local retailers … ugggg!!!
LEMON LAYER CAKE
So what’s a food blogger to do? You got it!!! Bippidy boppity booed my way to writing a new and improved, better than any other pink lemonade cake I’ve ever tasted before Pink Lemonade Cake recipe.
Seriously, I was so upset. I love pink lemonade cake and now that springtime is here and summer is quickly approaching, pink lemonade layer cake is my ultimate favorite summer dessert.
It’s the perfect combination of sweet and tart and how can you not love the bright pink cake color? Oh, of course you could make your pink lemonade cake any other color you want but … why?
This Pink Lemonade Cake is made from scratch, is super easy to make and has just the perfect tangy citrus flavor without being too sweet, too tart, too anything other than the most perfect bite of lemonade cake you have ever tried.
Topped off with a sweet lemon buttercream frosting, if you are a lover of all things lemon, this is the summertime sweet treat for you! If you don’t have any fresh lemons on hand, you can certainly use lemon extract in this recipe but adding in the fresh lemon juice and lemon zest really brings out the lemon flavor of this lemon layer cake.
And don’t worry if you will find yourself eating embarrassingly large pieces of this cake when no one is looking … just blame it on your dog. #truestory
PINK LEMONADE CAKE RECIPE
- To make this Pink Lemonade Cake, start by preheating oven to 350 degrees.
- Butter your baking pans and line the bottom with parchment paper.
- Next, add room temperature butter and sugar to a large mixing bowl and cream together.
- In a small bowl, add cake flour, baking powder and salt then whisk to combine. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, separate your eggs so that you only have egg whites in your bowl.
- Add your egg whites and milk to your butter mixture and beat to combine.
- To your butter mixture, add in your lemon juice and lemon zest followed by your dry ingredients, adding 1/3 of your dry ingredients at a time until all has been incorporated.
- Add in a few drops of pink gel food coloring and mix until you reach the desired color.
- Divide your batter evenly into the three baking pans and bake for 30-35 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes before removing cake from pan and moving cakes to cool completely on a baking rack.
- Once cooled, make your lemon buttercream frosting by adding softened butter to a large mixing bowl and beating until creamy.
- Add in sifted powdered sugar, salt, juice and zest of one lemon and 1-2 tablespoons of milk. Beat until fluffy then assemble your Pink Lemonade Cake.
- Start by trimming off the tops of the cakes where they have ‘domed’ up a bit.
- Lay your first cake layer upside down on the plate and cover with a layer of lemon buttercream frosting.
- Stack the second cake (again upside down) on top of the first and repeat with a layer of frosting.
- Add the final layer of cake (yes.. upside down) and finish frosting your cake top and sides. Serve immediately.
EGG WHITES ONLY
Since this recipe does not call for using a boxed cake mix and since it’s going to be a pink colored cake, you really don’t want to make a yellow colored cake to begin with.
Yellow + pink food coloring = orange. So for this Pink Lemonade Cake, we are basically making a white cake so that the pink cake color stays true. Leaving the egg yolks out of the cake mix rewards you with a white cake batter that will hold the pink cake color.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CAKE FLOUR AND ALL PURPOSE
This summertime dessert calls for cake flour instead of all purpose flour. If you only have all purpose flour, by all means you can use that instead of making a special trip to the store.
The difference between cake flour and all purpose flour is that cake flour is a finer milled flour and is very delicate with a lower protein content which produces super tender cakes with a very fine crumb.
PINK LEMONADE CUPCAKES
Simply fill up your cupcake pans with this Pink Lemonade Cake batter and bake at 325 degrees for 24-26 minutes and then top them off with the same amount of lemon buttercream frosting instructed below.
8 INCH CAKE PAN VS 9 INCH CAKE PAN
So the industry standard for making layer cakes is to use 9″ cake pans. This girl does not have 9″ cake pan, she has 8″ cake pans. This Pink Lemonade Cake is made in three layers and the instructions below are written for 8″ cake pans.
If you are a better person than me and use 9″ cake pans 🙂 bake your cake for 25-30 minutes instead of the instructions below.
CAKE PAN LINERS
Take the 3 minutes needed to trace the bottom of your cake pan onto some parchment paper, fold enough paper over onto itself to give you three layers and cut out three circles to line the bottom of your baking pans.
As someone who scoffed at this practice for YEARS, trust me when I tell you that no matter how well you non-stick your non-stick pans, cake always get stuck. Line your cake bottoms and this problem is a distant memory…
MORE EASY CAKE RECIPES
Pink Lemonade Cake
Ingredients
Pink Lemonade Cake
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1-1/2 cup sugar
- 6 egg whites
- 1-1/2 cups whole milk
- zest of two lemons
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice .. about 1-1/2 lemons
- 3-1/2 cups cake flour
- 3-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- pink gel food coloring
Lemon Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- juice and zest of one lemon
- 1-2 tablespoons whole milk or cream
- dash of salt
- yellow gel food coloring
Instructions
- To make this Pink Lemonade Cake, start by preheating oven to 350 degrees. Butter your baking pans and line the bottom with parchment paper. Next, add softened butter and sugar to a large mixing bowl and cream together. In a small bowl, add cake flour, baking powder and salt then whisk to combine. Set aside. In a small bowl, separate your eggs so that you only have egg whites in your bowl. Add your egg whites and milk to your butter mixture and beat to combine. To your butter mixutre, add in your lemon juice and lemon zest followed by your dry ingredients, adding 1/3 of your dry ingredients at a time until all has been incorporated. Add in a few drops of pink gel food coloring and mix until you reach the desired color. Divide your batter evenly into the three baking pans and bake for 30-35 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes before removing cake from pan and moving cakes to cool completely on a baking rack. Once cooled, make your lemon buttercream frosting by adding softened butter to a large mixing bowl and beating until creamy. Add in sifted powdered sugar, salt, juice and zest of one lemon and 1-2 tablespoons of milk along with a drop or two yellow gel food coloring. Beat until fluffy then assemble your Pink Lemonade Cake.
- Start by trimming off the tops of the cakes where they have 'domed' up a bit. Lay your first cake layer upside down on the plate and cover with a layer of lemon buttercream frosting. Stack the second cake (again upside down) on top of the first and repeat with a layer of frosting. Add the final layer of cake (yes.. upside down) and finish frosting your cake top and sides. Serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
Update Notes: This post was originally published in May of 2019 but was republished with an updated recipe, new photos, step by step instructions and tips in April of 2024.
