Gluten-Free & Dairy Free Raspberry Filled Lemon Cake

I sometimes feel like I need an occasion to make a cake, and this occasions so very special! Last year in early 2020, pre-pando, my sister and her husband were planning for a August wedding. Well, like everything in the last year, those plans were put on pause. She and her husband had asked me to bake their wedding cake and I jumped at the opportunity to bake their cake. My sister and I both have celiac disease and finding high quality baked goods can be hard in remote places.

As family, we love a lemon cake almost as much as chocolate cake. A few years ago, I developed this lemon poppy seed cake for my brother-in-law for his birthday. In similar fashion to this occasion, we were traveling to Oregon for a family friends wedding and brought the cake so we could celebrate him on his birthday. Not unlike that occasion, I will be transporting cake layers to the wedding.

How to size cakes for the number of guests.

Sizing cakes is personal preference on how you want it to look when the cake is cut. I played around with the idea of doing sheet cakes, and cutting them into circles (Milkbar Style) or do larger cakes in tins, to cut into layers. The planning process is crucial for your event because each host may prefer their presentation differently. At our wedding, we decided to do cupcakes and then a mini cake, my sister preferred to have a table full of cakes for the guests. Either way is just as fun, but holds personality with each bride or host.

Although her wedding is small, only 65 guests, our family loves cake so we are planning to provide each guest with a slice of cake. In the planning process we broke down each cake to how we would esthetically like it to be served and my mom, sister and I all agreed that we prefer the cakes to be in slice form. That means, we will be doing 5, 9″ cakes with 3 layers each. The recipe for this cake makes 1 very tall 9″ cake that can be sliced into 1″ layers. I wanted to make sure that this was going to make sense for baking, so I didn’t bake 40 individual layers, rather than 5 cakes that were tall enough to cut into layers.

Transporting Cakes…yikes

Yes, you heard that, transporting these cakes. Transporting cakes is literally the scariest part of cake decorating because one bump could send this cake sliding across your car or jumping right out of your hands. My husband, Moose (my pup) and I will be driving 13 hours to Colorado for my sister’s wedding with these cakes, but I will not be slicing, decorating or really doing anything besides baking the cakes before we leave on our road trip.

Like I said above, I will be using 1 cake for 3 layers, to make sure these cakes stay moist, I will be keeping them in tact and cutting the layers when we get to the venue. One thing that is unique in this situation is that I will be decorating the cakes 1 day before the event. The wedding is on a Friday, and as the Maid of Honor, I have duties to do before the wedding on the day of, so Thursday is my cake prep day. Luckily my sister’s mother-in-law is a food stylist and has all the tools that I might ever need (and dream about) using for the cakes, so I can crank them out in our Airbnb.

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My day of prep + frosting

My day of frosting plans will go as follows:

• Wake up and start prepping the frosting (I will need a lot of frosting for the fillings and the outside)
• Slice the cakes into 3 layers
• Create my simple syrup moisture mixture (sugar + water to ensure the cakes are super moist during their stay in the fridge for a day)
• Start frosting – lay out all the sliced layers and start with each cake one at a time for the internal layers of frosting and jam
• I will start with the internal layers of frosting and jam
• Place each cake in the fridge after they have been filled
• Once they have chilled, I will apply a crumb coat to each cake, placing back in the freezer each time to chill the frosting together
• Then applying the outside layer and smoothing the frosting

I have been practicing on cakes so I can get the flow down, and I am no where near an expert at all, but I am really enjoying the process of getting better. Cakes have scared me in the past because I want to be good but it takes a lot of work to get them right! And I am a perfectionist! I have learned so many skills from people on social media, my friend Kaitlin from Sweet and Tarte. If you are looking for a great cake recipe, this one is so delicious and worth the work – trust me!

I can’t wait to share pictures from the wedding and share how the cakes turn out! Make sure you follow me on Instagram and TikTok for more!