This cake is bursting with sunshine and citrus flavor. It can be made ahead of time, so you don’t have to worry about cooking on your big day!
This “traditional pound cake recipe” is a 6 Inch Sunshine Citrus Cake. It has a citrus flavor and is made of simple ingredients that are easy to find.
With brilliant taste, a light and springy cake crumb, and creamy whipped frosting, this 6 inch sunny citrus cake cures the cold season blues. This whipped frosting is minimally sweetened to complement the acidic citrus taste of the cake. In the cake batter, use lemon, orange, and/or lime juice and zest, and don’t forget the homemade lemon curd!
Sunshine on a Cake Stand is a picture of sunshine on a cake stand.
During a week of freezing rain and ice, I continuously tested this cake recipe, taste-tested the final version with a few friends while snow fell outside, and shot the cake on a frigid day with a 40mph wind banging against my window. As a result, we’ve dubbed it sunshine citrus cake, since nothing could be more appropriate as we look forward to warmer, brighter days ahead!
Details on the Sunshine Citrus Cake
- If you like the sweet, tangy, and refreshing taste of fresh citrus fruits, you will adore today’s cake recipe. Before adding fresh orange, lemon, and lime zest, cream butter and sugar together for a minute. We’re injecting flavor into the cake’s foundation during this creaming process. When you add milk to the batter, add fresh-squeezed juice. We’ll also make fresh lemon curd, which you’ll use to fill the cake with whipped icing. You have complete choice on the citrus utilized, so if you don’t want to use an orange, that’s OK. You may also use grapefruit, blood orange, or simple lemon instead.
- The crumb is light and springy, yet holds up well against the creamy whipped icing.
- This is a 6-inch three-layer cake. Because they’re a more manageable size, 6 inch cakes are really hot right now. There will be less remaining if you have a small family or event, and the smaller size will make assembling, decorating, and serving simpler. If you don’t have any, 6 inch cake pans are a great size to use. These 6 inch pans are what I use and adore (affiliate link). You’ll also find plenty more recipes to try on my 6 inch cakes page!
- Ease: Despite the fact that the round layer cake is smaller than a standard 9-inch cake, there are a few tasks that need your attention, such as creating the lemon curd, meticulously beating the frosting, and adding a crumb coat.
Three Parts to Sunshine Citrus Cake & Why This Recipe Works
This cake has citrus cake layers, a lemon curd-infused whipped icing inside, and plain whipped frosting on the outside.
- Lemon Curd: Have you ever tried making lemon curd? You’ve probably eaten something similar if you’ve made lemon bars or lemon meringue pie. Lemon curd is a tart, creamy, and sweet topping that you can create on the stovetop and serve with scones, quick breads, crepes, and a variety of other dishes. Lemon curd prepared from scratch tastes 1,000 times better than store-bought, yet it only takes 5 minutes to make. (Not to mention that all of those components are required for the cake!) It’s so handy!) Because the lemon curd has to chill and thicken, start with it. Do you want to make the curd with any additional citrus fruits? Please see the recipe note below. The curd in the cake shown has orange zest in it.
- Layers of Citrus Cake: The cake recipe is based on my perfect lemon cupcakes. The recipes are essentially similar, with the exception that we’re using a citrus blend and infusing citrus zest into the creamed butter/sugar mixture today. Most cupcake recipes produce 12-15 cupcakes, which is enough batter for a three-layer, six-inch cake. It takes around 3-4 cups of cake batter to make a dozen cupcakes, which distributes neatly between three 6 inch cake layers.
- Whipped Frosting: Have you tried this sweet-but-not-too-sweet whipped frosting? Now is your moment to shine. We’re combining part of the frosting with lemon curd to make the filling for the cake.
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