Pink Lemonade Cake

I love lemon desserts, and I decided to put a fresh spin on my lemonade cake and lemon chiffon cake with this recipe. This gorgeous, sweet-tangy pink lemonade cake is three amazing layers of ultra-soft, flavorful homemade chiffon cake topped with the creamiest frosting.

A few key differences set a chiffon cake apart from my classic vanilla cake recipe. To make this cake extra soft and fluffy, the recipe calls for cake flour, and I whip the egg whites separately before folding them into the batter. The resulting cake is very light and tender, with a tighter crumb. It’s the closest I’ve come to the flavor of a boxed cake mix, made from scratch!

After baking, I’ll show you how to stack and decorate this pink lemonade layer cake with a fun (and easy) ombré frosting technique. The frosting for this pink ombré cake is homemade buttercream frosting flavored with pink lemonade and lemon zest to match the cake flavors. 

It’s so bright, fresh, and pretty. Perfect for a kids’ birthday cake, baby or bridal shower cake, or Mother’s Day dessert!

Ingredients Needed

Here are the ingredients needed to make this easy layer cake recipe. See the recipe card for the full recipe amounts.

• Cake Flour – Cake flour is milled extra-fine and contains less protein than all-purpose flour. Less protein = lighter, more tender baked goods. It’s a key ingredient to the tight crumb and light texture of this chiffon cake. If you don’t have cake flour, you can make a homemade cake flour substitute. Combine 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, and mix.
• Sugar – I recommend granulated white sugar.
• Baking Powder – Check that it hasn’t expired, and if so, you’ll need to buy fresh.
• Oil – For an extra-tender, moist cake. Vegetable oil or canola oil is best.
• Eggs – Separate the eggs while they’re cold. You’ll use the yolks and whites in the batter; you’ll just whip the egg whites separately.
• Pink Lemonade – This can be fresh pink lemonade or made from a canned concentrate.
• Lemon Zest – You’ll need the zest from about one medium-sized lemon.
• Cream of Tartar – Helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
• Food Coloring (Optional) – Coloring is totally optional if you’d like a pink-hued pink lemonade cake.

Pink Lemonade Frosting

• Butter – Brought to room temperature.
• Powdered Sugar – Also called confectioner’s sugar.
• Pink Lemonade and Lemon Zest – You can use the same lemonade that you used for the cake. Zest an additional lemon.
• Food Coloring – Again, this is optional. I color a portion of the frosting pink to create an ombré effect on my layer cake. More on this below!

How to Make Pink Lemonade Cake

The method is easy for this lemonade layer cake, but you will need two bowls, since you’ll separate the eggs and whip the whites on their own.

• Get ready to bake. While the oven preheats to 350ºF, grease three 8-inch cake pans.

• Mix the dry ingredients. Meanwhile, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. 
• Add the wet ingredients. Make a well in the dry ingredients. Add the egg yolks, oil, pink lemonade, and food coloring, if using. Mix for about 3 minutes, until well-combined.

• Whip the egg whites. In a new bowl, combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Beat on high until the whites form stiff peaks that stand straight up on the end of the whisk.
• Finish the cake batter. Now, gently fold the egg whites into the cake batter. I recommend doing this by hand to maintain a light, airy texture.
• Bake. Divide the batter between your prepared cake pans. Bake the cakes at 350ºF for 15-20 minutes. The cakes are done when you lightly press them in the center, and the crumb springs back right away. Cool the cakes for 10 minutes, then remove them from the pans and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Assembling and Frosting the Cake

Once the cake layers are baked and cooled, you can level them if necessary before you frost them. This cake doesn’t produce huge domes, so I only took off a tiny bit of the top to get them to stack flat.

1. Make a batch of frosting. Beat the butter, then alternate adding the powdered sugar and pink lemonade. Mix in the lemon zest. Continue beating the frosting until it reaches a smooth, spreadable consistency.
2. Stack the cake. Pipe or spread the frosting over the first cake layer, place the second cake on top, and repeat for the third cake layer. Then, fill any gaps in the frosting to create a crumb coat on the outside of the cake. Place the cake into the fridge for 15-30 minutes. You can read more about assembling layer cakes in my chocolate layer cake recipe.
3. Frost the outside. Once the crumb coat has set, use the rest of the frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake. If you’d like, follow the steps below to create a pink ombré frosting effect.

How to Make Ombré Frosting

To make this more of a special occasion cake, add an ombré pattern when frosting! It’s actually very easy to do. It gives this pink lemonade cake a bakery-style finish, and you can make it any color you’d like. Here are the steps:

1. Divide the frosting. Prepare a batch of frosting and crumb coat the cake according to the directions above. While the cake chills in the fridge, separate your remaining frosting into thirds. Color one portion dark pink, one portion a shade or two lighter, and leave the last portion uncolored (white).
2. Frost the bottom edge. Using an offset spatula, frost around the bottom edge of the cake with the darkest color first. 
3. Blend with the next color. Next, apply the slightly lighter shade of frosting evenly around the middle, blending it with the darker frosting. 
4. Frost the rest of the cake. Finally, use the uncolored frosting to cover the rest of the cake, blending it into the previous color.

Expert Cake-Baking Tips

• Separate the eggs into a separate bowl. Even the smallest amount of stray yolk will prevent egg whites from whipping properly. To avoid “contaminating” the whole batch of egg whites, separate the eggs over a separate bowl, then add the whites to the rest.
• Adjust the frosting consistency. If the frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar. If it’s too thick, add a little more lemonade.
• Avoid curdled frosting. The more pink lemonade you add to the buttercream, the more the frosting will appear “curdled”. Once your frosting reaches your desired consistency, add more zest rather than lemonade if you’d like to amp up the flavor.
• For a more subtle lemonade flavor, skip the lemon zest in the cake and frosting.

Storing a Frosted Cake

• Refrigerate. This cake is fine at room temperature for a couple of hours. However, for longer-term storage, store the cake in a cake carrier or cover it with plastic wrap to keep it in the fridge. It’ll last for 2-3 days.
• Freeze. You can freeze the frosted cake or unfrosted cake layers for up to 2 months. Double-wrap the cake in plastic wrap before freezing. Thaw at room temperature or in the fridge.

More Easy Lemon Recipes

• Lemon Cloud Cake
• Lemon Lush
• No-Bake Lemonade Pie
• Lemon Meringue Cheesecake
• Lemon Sheet Cake
• Lemon Cream Pie