This Strawberry Lemon Cake recipe from scratch is the perfect dessert for summer! It’s a moist and delicious layered vegan lemon cake with homemade blackberry jam and strawberry frosting!
Strawberry Lemon Cake Recipe
Today is mother’s day! So I came up with the idea to make a pink lady-like cake with beautiful strawberries and blackberries for this special day. I think it’s always a good choice to surprise your loved ones with something that is homemade. Don’t you agree? Anyways, I find this fresh strawberry lemon cake is perfect for any occasion in the summer season. So I am happy to share the recipe with you!
Easy Layer Cake
While this strawberry lemon cake consists of multiple components, like cake layers, strawberry cream frosting, and blackberry jam, I can assure you that it’s not difficult to make. You can easily prepare the vegan lemon cake and the blackberry jam one day in advance. Then, on the second day, you just need to whip up the strawberry frosting and assemble the cake. Sounds pretty simple, right?
How to make a layer cake step-by-step instructions
I’ve already shared a detailed process on how to assemble a layer cake in the recipe for my Chocolate Raspberry Cake which is a 3 layer cake. However, I find pictures say more than words, so I took some pictures again, showing you how to assemble this 4 layer strawberry lemon cake.
How to make strawberry lemon cake from scratch
First of all, bake the cake. Simply prepare 2 cake pans and combine the ingredients for the batter as instructed in the recipe box below. Then divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans and bake until they’re done. Let the baked cakes cool completely or, preferably, refrigerate overnight, because a chilled cake is easier to cut into layers.
How to assemble a layer cake
When your vegan lemon cake layers are completely cooled, cut each cake horizontally into two equal layers. Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Spread 1/3 of the blackberry jam over the cake. Then spread 1/4 of the strawberry frosting over it. Top with the next cake layer, and repeat this process for the second and third layer.
Strawberry Frosting
Finally, when you place the fourth layer on top, spread the remaining strawberry frosting over the entire cake, creating a naked cake style on the sides.
Layer Cake decoration
Now you can decorate the lemon cake however you would like. I used fresh strawberries, blackberries, and flowers to decorate the top of the cake. Since our garden is full of these beauties, I love using them for food photography and styling! Especially pink, purple and white flowers, they’re my favorites.
I hope you’ll like this strawberry lemon cake from scratch! This vegan layer cake is:
- Vegan
- Dairy-free
- Eggless
- Can be made gluten-free
- Moist
- Soft
- Fruity
- Filled with homemade blackberry jam
- Layered with strawberry frosting
- So delicious!
- The perfect recipe for summer!
Homemade blackberry jam
By the way, the blackberry jam takes only 5 minutes to make and it’s so delicious! You can make it with any kind of berries, and it’s also perfect serve with other foods, such as pancakes, Crêpes, and waffles! I really love and enjoy having it for breakfast, just on toast or on top of my oatmeal or overnight oats. The great thing about making homemade jam is that you can adjust the sweetness to your taste. I usually make mine not so super sweet, so it’s also healthier than store-bought jams often are.
If you’re looking for more Vegan Layer Cake Recipes, you may also like my:
- Chocolate Raspberry Cake
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Snickers Cake
- Blueberry Lemon Cake
- Vegan Black Forest Cake
- Best Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Strawberry Cream Cake
- Vegan Vanilla Cake
If you try this Vegan Strawberry Lemon Cake Recipe or maybe another of my Vegan Cake Recipes, please leave me a comment below sharing how it goes! And if you take a picture of your recreation and share it on Instagram, please don’t forget to tag me @biancazapatka and use the hashtag #biancazapatka , to make sure I won’t miss your post! Happy baking!
Strawberry Lemon Cake with Blackberry Jam
Author:You do not have a fitting cake pan at hand right now? Try my Cake Pan Conversion Calculator!
Ingredients
Lemon cake
- 1 ¼ cup non-dairy milk 300ml, or yogurt
- ¾ cup lemon juice 180ml
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour 420g
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ cups sugar 300g
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ cup oil 120ml
- ⅓ cup melted vegan butter 80ml, or add ¼ cup more oil
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp turmeric for yellow color (optional)
- 1 tbsp lemon zest
Blackberry Jam
- 14 oz blackberries 400g, frozen or fresh
- ¼ cup sugar 50g, or to taste
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 3-4 tbsp water
Strawberry cream frosting
- ¾ cup freeze dried strawberries 14g, ground until to 1 tbsp powder
- 1 cup unsalted butter 225g, softened
- 8 oz cream cheese 225g, softened
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar 180g
- 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
Vegan Lemon Cake
- Combine non-dairy milk with lemon juice and set aside until it curdles and becomes vegan buttermilk. (If you don't want to make vegan buttermilk, you can simply add non-dairy yogurt + lemon juice or milk in step 4).
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease two 8-inch (20cm) cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt.
- Stir the oil, melted vegan butter, vanilla and lemon zest into the vegan buttermilk. Then pour it into the flour mixture and mix everything just until the ingredients are combined. (Please don't overmix or your cakes will get dense).
- Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans and bake for about 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (Please don't overbake or your cakes will get dry.)
- Let cool completely. (Optionally, wrap each cake in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours until well chilled because this makes them easier to cut evenly.)
Blackberry Jam
- Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook until the blackberries are soft and the mixture has thickened, about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Let cool to room temperature. (It will thicken more as it cools.)
Strawberry Frosting
- Mix the soft vegan butter with a handheld mixer until creamy. Then add the softened cream cheese and mix again. Lastly, sift in powdered sugar, dried strawberries and a squeeze of lemon juice and mix again until creamy and well combined. (If it’s too firm and not spreadable, stir in more lemon juice. Or if it is too soft, add more powdered sugar).
Assembling the Cake:
- Cut each cake horizontally in two equal layers.
- Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Spread 1/3 of the blackberry jam over the cake. Then spread 1/4 of the strawberry frosting over.
- Top with the next layer, and repeat this process for the second and third layer. Place the fourth layer on top and spread the remaining lemon frosting over it.
- Chill 3-4 hours in the fridge before decorating and serving.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- To make this cake gluten-free, I recommend using a gluten-free flour blend 1:1.
- Instead of cream cheese, you can use very firm coconut cream. Simply refrigerate a can of coconut milk overnight. Then scoop out the solid part from the can which should have the same consistency as cream cheese.
- If you don’t want to make the blackberry jam, you can use store-bought berry compote or jam. Or just fold some berries tossed in a bit of flour into the batter.
- You can use any kind berries of you choose.
- Store leftover cake covered in the fridge, for up to 3 days, or freeze the un-frosted cake.
- Please read the text for further information about this recipe.
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Is there something I can use instead of freeze dried strawberries for the frosting? I can’t find it anywhere!
You can leave it out. This is just used for coloring! 😉
Hi Bianca.
I’m planning to make the cake tomorrow for a friend’s birthday. The problem is i only have one cake pan 8 x 4 inch and one 6 x 4 inch, would it be alright to bake the first batter in the 8 x 4 pan until it’s totally baked and then bake the second batter. Or i must bake them at the same time, if so, I thought about baking them together but one batter in the 8 x 4 pan and the other half in the 6 x 4 which will make a two tier cake; but in this case do I need to increase the ingredients?
Regards,
Noura
Hi Noura,
yes, you can bake one part of the batter first and then the second part.
You could also use my cake pan conversion calculator to adjust the measurements fitting to different cake pan sizes.
Also, be sure to adjust the baking time as it may vary when using different cake pans and sizes. When you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean, it’s done baking. If your cake is done sooner than recommended in this recipe, remove it earlier, or it’ll get dry.
Best, Bianca 😉
Thanks a lot 🙏🏾
♥️
I am planning to make this cake!
The recipe stated 1/3 cup melted vegan butter 80ml, or add 1/4 cup more oil. Do you mean the oil is a replacement of the butter ? Or in addition to the butter add the oil ?
The recipe stated ½ cup oil and ⅓ cup butter.
If you don’t want to use butter, you can add ¼ cup more oil.
That means you’ll need ¾ cups oil in total when you skip the butter.
I made this for my mum’s birthday and it was INCREDIBLE!!!! Everyone loved it and they had absolutely no idea it was vegan. I added some free from white chocolate to the icing which gave it a nice sweetness to balance the blackberry jam. Thank you for another fab recipe 🙂
Yay, that’s great! 😀
So glad everyone loved this cake! 🙂
Thanks for your feedback! <3
Do you think this would work as a two-layer cake? I’m worried I’ll mess up cutting the two cakes.
Yes, sure! 🙂
Simply leave the layers whole!
Thank you!
<3
The cake was awesome and fluffy, but after taking it out the oven it became flat. Do you know why did happened?
Hi there, where are you based exactly?
I found out that this happens most often in hot and humid climates, where extra moisture in the air can ruin a cake after the baking process.
If you’d like to make it again, you can try increasing the baking temperature by 15°F-25°F or leave it in the oven for longer to help set the batter.
Hope this will help! <3
So good! This has become my new go to recipe for baking for people’s birthday! Thanks!
So glad you love this recipe! Thank you so much for your feedback! 😍
I found strawberry flavored vegan cream cheese, would you recommend that over the coconut milk? Excited to bake this for my vegan sister!!
Oh yes! Strawberry cream cheese sounds amazing! I bet that would be delicious! 🙂
You can definitely try it for the frosting!
What type of oil is used in this recipe?
You can use any neutral vegetable oil. I recommend using canola or sunflower oil.
Soo fun to make!!! The gorgeous layers are what pulled me into this recipe, it’s definitely a must bake!
Thank you so much! ❤️
Can you make the cake one day before assembling it with the frosting and jam?
Yes, sure! 😊
Thank you very very much!!! It’s really good recipe)) I am cooking now;))))
Hope you’ll enjoy it! ❤️
I made this cake for mothers day and it was a phenomenal hit! I made a different filling and coconut cream covering, but the cake itself was fantastic! This will be my new go-to cake for all vegan celebrations 👌👌 Delish!
So glad you love this cake! Thank you so much! 😊
Super Rezept 😍
Perfekt für den Muttertag 👌🏻
Dankeschön 😊
Can I use frozen strawberries instead of freeze dried especially since I can’t find freeze dried?
No, you can only use powder or another food coloring!
So do we need the freeze dried strawberries or is only for color and just using food coloring won’t have an effect on the taste right?
The freeze-dried strawberries are only used for coloring. Feel free to use your favorite food coloring or leave the color out! This won’t change the taste! 🙂
Hi there! So excited to try this recipe. Would freeze dried raspberries be okay to use to replace the strawberry?
Hi Hannelore,
the strawberry powder is only used for the color. You can leave it out or add another food coloring.
Best, Bianca
And also does this recipe only make enough frosting for a naked cake? If we wanted to cover the whole cake would we make more frosting? Thank you❤️
The frosting is enough to cover the cake as you can see in the photos. My whole cake is covered! 😀
Your cake is so beautiful. What type of flowers did you put on top?
Hi Noura, so glad you like these flowers! Honestly, I’m not sure how they’re called but we have them in our garden! 🙂
I made this cake over the weekend for my extended family and everyone loved it even though no one is vegan. I’ll definitely be making it again! Just a heads up for anyone else making the frosting with coconut cream though: as the cream was from the fridge, it curdled when mixed with the butter. It’s best to mix it in with the butter in a bowl over some hot water to stop this from happening. Great recipe though, thank you!
Hi Alba, so glad you enjoyed this strawberry lemon cake and thank you for the tip! 🙂 Lots of love, Bianca <3
Thank you for sharing it with us. I will surely try to make this cake on my birthday.
Hope you’ll like it 🙂 Thank you! <3
So delicious and so easy to make. I’m the only vegan in my family and they couldn’t believe the cake was vegan. I will for sure make this cake again!!❤️🤤
So glad that you liked the recipe! Thank you 🙂
Suuuper leckerer Kuchen!! Den mache ich aufjedenfall nochmal!
Das freut mich 🙂 Dankeschön!
Made this cake and it was easy and amazing.
Your recepies are amazing. I wanne try them all.
Thank you so much! 🙂 <3
This reminds me of a cake we had in Saint Tropez last summer. Yum!!
So glad that you like it 🙂 Thank you <3
I made this cake for my roommates birthday. It was the first layer cake I ever made!
The recipe was easy and fast!
My roommate loved it and already sent me a bunch of your cake recipes to try in the future.
Thank you so much! ❤️
Love this, just wondering would the recipe work well as cupcakes?
Yes, sure! The baking time may be a little shorter. Hope you’ll like it 🙂
We made this cake for our daughter’s party. We got so many compliments and many were asking for the recipe. This cake is excellent, thank you for the recipe!
So glad that you like it! Thank you so much! ?
Looks amazing Bianca! Love all these amazing layers! Would love to eat a big slice now!
Much love, Ela
Would love to send you a slice! Thank you so much, Ela! ?
Bianca, wow! Your layer cake looks stunning! It’s so perfect for Mother’s Day 🙂
Thank you so much! Hope you had a great weekend! ?