Cakes/ Summer

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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Gluten-Free & Dairy Free Raspberry Filled Lemon Cake

  • Author: Paige
  • Prep Time: 60 minutes
  • Cook Time: 1 hours 10 minutes
  • Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
  • Yield: 1 beautiful Cale 1x
  • Category: cakes
  • Method: baking

Description

Gluten-free and Dairy free raspberry filled lemon cake is perfect for a brunch, birthday or just because you want to bake a cake! This cake is fluffy, sweet and subtly tart from the raspberry jam! A great change from your regular vanilla cake.


Ingredients

Units Scale

Cake:

  • 1 cup of vegan butter
  • 1 3/4 cups of granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp of baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp of baking soda
  • 2 tsp of vanilla extract
  • 1 cup of dairy free milk
  • 1/3 cups of lemon juice
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 3 room temperature eggs
  • 3.5 cups of gluten-free flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill 1:1)

Frosting:

  • 2 cups of vegan butter
  • 9 cups of powdered sugar
  • 2 tsp of vanilla extract
  • 34 tablespoons of dairy free milk
  • 1/4 cups of coconut cream (the thick part on the top of the can)
  • 1 tsp of salt

Filling: 

  • 3/4 cups of Fresh Raspberry Jam (not jelly)

 


Instructions

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 350°F and grease your 9″ cake pan with vegan butter, tap 2 tablespoons of gluten free flour around the pan to lightly coat the butter, tap the excess out in your sink and set the pan aside
  2. In your mixing bowl, cream your vegan butter and sugar until the butter looks like a light yellow and fluffy
  3. Next add in your vanilla extract, baking soda, baking powder and salt, mix until well combined
  4. Add in your eggs, one egg at a time, beating well after each egg
  5. Zest and juice your lemon adding both into your batter
  6. Alternating with gluten free flour and your dairy free milk, add 1 cup of flour to 1/3 cup of dairy free milk to your mixture until each addition is gently combined
  7. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the bowl down and then beat one more time to make sure all the batter is combined
  8. Scoop all your batter into your prepared baking pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean
  9. Remove your cake and let it cool on a cooling rack in the pan for at least 30 minutes
  10. When the metal is cool to the touch, using a knife slice around the cake and then release it from the pan and place on the rack until the cake is completely cool roughly 1 hour
  11. To prepare your frosting, place your 2 cups of vegan butter in your mixer with the whisk attachment, and whip your butter with your coconut cream 
  12. Next add in your vanilla extract and salt and combine 
  13. Add the powdered sugar to your butter mixture one cup at time whipping on medium high until combined
  14. Next add in your dairy free milk, you might need more according to your frosting, and whip until light and fluffy
  15. To frost your cake, take your cooled cake and cut your cake into 3 even layers
  16. Using a serrated knife, gently turn your cake with the knife horizontally to gently cut your layers
  17. Place your bottom layer on a cake plate, and fill your piping bag with frosting
  18. Pipe a thick layer of frosting around the edge of the cake, and using 3 tbsp of frosting cover the center of the piped area
  19. Over the frosting in the center of the cake, place 1/4 cup of raspberry jam (this is up to preference, if you like less, do less
  20. Next, add your “top” of the cake in the middle repeating the piping and the jam
  21. Lastly, place your “middle” slice of cake on the top, flat side up and frost about 1/3 cups of frosting on the top
  22. Place your filled cakes in the fridge for 30 minutes until the frosting is firm
  23. Remove from the fridge and using a thin layer of frosting, cover the sides of your cake with your crumb coat
  24. Place your cake back in the fridge for another 30 minutes
  25. Remove your cake after the frosting has set and cover the sides and top with the remaining frosting
  26. Eat and enjoy! 

Notes

*you can change your filling to any jam you want to use! I love to use the Bonne Maman Jam

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!

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11 Comments

  • Reply
    Chrissy
    December 18, 2022 at 4:44 pm

    How much salt goes into the cake? Step 3 says to add salt but the ingredient list doesn’t list salt.

    • Reply
      Paige
      December 21, 2022 at 2:18 pm

      Hi Chrissy! Thank you for catching that! I’ll add it in right now! I use 1 teaspoon of salt! Happy Baking – Paige

  • Reply
    Lois
    February 11, 2023 at 8:20 pm

    How deep is the 9 “ pan? I’m wondering if I should double the recipe and make 2 cakes, and cut them to make 4 layers.

    • Reply
      Paige
      February 11, 2023 at 9:37 pm

      Hi! I use a standard baking dish and it’s about 2” deep and for my sisters wedding I made this recipe and cut each cake ( 2, 9” pans) into 2, leaving me with 4 thinner layers!

  • Reply
    Lois
    March 23, 2023 at 7:06 pm

    If I were to adapt this to make cupcakes, any idea how many it would yield? If not, I’ll try it out and let you know!

    • Reply
      Paige
      March 23, 2023 at 7:41 pm

      Hi Lois! I’m not entirely sure but I would guess about 18-20 regular size cupcakes! Let me know what you find out 🙂 happy baking!

      • Reply
        Lois
        March 26, 2023 at 8:26 pm

        I halved the recipe (by beating the second egg and using half its volume), and baked the cupcakes for 23 minutes. It made a dozen, but I probably overfilled a couple of them because I was feeling lazy! This was a test run for my daughter’s wedding as a GF, DF alternative for those with food sensitivities. The bride and groom’s favourite cake is lemon poppyseed. I think I might add a little lemon extract, as I didn’t find the lemon flavour really came through. Nice texture though, for a GF cake. I was thinking of making a divot in the top to add the raspberry jam, chill, then ice. More experimenting to come. Thanks Paige.

        • Reply
          Paige
          March 27, 2023 at 10:12 am

          I love this and your zest for testing! I do find that if my lemons aren’t super fresh the lemon flavor can fade when you bake it and adding lemon extract is a great way to add some flavor! I have a lemon poppyseed cake on my website if you are interested in that as a good jumping off point for your testing! keep on baking! https://frontpaige.net/2019-5-21-gluten-free-vegan-lemon-poppy-seed-cake/

  • Reply
    Bella Lovinggood
    April 7, 2023 at 2:54 pm

    I’m planning on making this cake for Easter, and I will need to make it the day before. Do you know if the cake will soak up the jam in that amount of time??

    • Reply
      Paige
      April 9, 2023 at 12:04 pm

      Hi Sorry for the delay! The cake should be fine to make ahead of time, I would make sure the layer of frosting under the jam is a little thicker to maintain the structure so the jam doesnt absorb!

  • Reply
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