Pink Lemonade Cake from Scratch

This Pink Lemonade Cake is so moist, tender, and tastes like summertime!

We love the uniqueness of this cake recipe and flavor. Pink Lemonade Cake isn't a dessert that you see very often, but it should be. Keep it in mind when you're looking for birthday cake ideas or summer cake recipes!

Just the Right Amount of Tartness

Unlike our popular Lemon Cake recipe, this Pink Lemonade Cake has an extra boost of tartness from frozen Pink Lemonade concentrate. This is a cake flavor that both kids and adults will love.

We frosted the cake with lemon cream cheese frosting. It complements the pink lemonade layers perfectly! Enjoy the recipe.

If you love lemonade desserts, make sure to check out our lemonade cake, lemonade cupcakes, and Lemonade Layer Cake also!

Reverse Creaming Method 

Like many of our scratch recipes, this cake is made using the Reverse Creaming Method of mixing.

This method refers to the order that ingredients are added, which is a bit different than the traditional way. Cakes made with the reverse creaming method are slightly denser, and have a wonderful velvety quality.

We go over all of the mixing details clearly in our Recipe, but if you'd like a bit more information, we have a free cake video tutorial on the method here!: Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing.

How to Make a Pink Lemonade Cake

You can find the full, printable cake recipe further down in this post. here is a quick rundown of our steps!

1. First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease and flour two 8x2 inch round pans.
2. In the bowl of your mixer add the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Whisk to combine dry ingredients for 30 seconds.
3. In a separate bowl, add the room temperature eggs, Pink Lemonade concentrate, lemon extract, zest & milk.
4. With the mixer on low speed, add the slices of butter a few pieces at a time to the dry ingredients. Increase the mixer to medium speed and beat until the dry ingredients look crumbly like coarse sand. Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl.
5. With the mixer on low speed SLOWLY ADD ½ of the egg mixture. Increase to medium speed for 1 ½ minutes. The batter will become thick and fluffy. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl. Add the pink gel color.
6. Add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating for 20 seconds after each addition.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
8. Let the pink lemonade cake layers cool in the pans for 10 minutes on a wire rack, then turn out. (This recipe makes 7 cups of batter.)

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

As we mentioned above, this cake is frosted in lemon cream cheese frosting! We love this recipe recipe, and it is so easy to make. It is a simple combination of softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon extract.

This luscious Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting is perfect for so many cake recipes (Vanilla Cake, White Velvet Cake, Lemon Cake, Lemon Coconut Cake, and more)!

Tips for Cream Cheese Frosting 

Keep in mind that cream cheese frostings are softer than buttercream frostings. They are more heat sensitive also.

So, if you find that your frosting is too soft to easily pipe with, chill it to firm it up a bit. (If that doesn't work, add a bit more powdered sugar to thicken.)

Also, some have trouble with the heat of their hands softening the frosting in the piping bag while they work. If you have hot hands ;0), you may consider rotating between two piping bags (chill one while using the other). 

Here's a bowl of the frosting before tinting.

How to Decorate the Pink Lemonade Cake

To decorate the pink lemonade cake, I filled the cake layers with our Lemon Cream Cheese frosting, and then covered it with a thin layer of frosting (crumb coat).

Then, I used a 2D piping tip to pipe vertical lines around the sides, piping from bottom to top all the way around. (We demonstrate a similar method in our Elegant Piping with a 1M tip tutorial!)

Next, I used a french tip (Ateco 869) to pipe stars all over the top with the lemon cream cheese frosting. I love this simple style of decorating! So quick, easy, and inviting.

More Lemon Recipes

If you love lemon desserts, here are a few more lemony cakes to try!

In addition to our delicious Lemonade Pound Cake and Strawberry Lemonade Cake recipes which match our flavor theme today, we also have a great collection of Lemon Cake Recipes that you will love!

• Lemon Cake- Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
• Lemon Pound Cake
• Coconut Lemon Cake
• Lemon Blueberry Cake

Pink Lemonade Cake from Scratch

BY Melissa and Bebe

This moist and delicious Pink Lemonade Layer Cake has the perfect amount of tartness, which is balanced with a luscious layer of lemon cream cheese frosting!

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 25 minutes mins

Servings: 15 servings

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Ingredients

For the Pink Lemonade Cake Layers

• ▢ 2 ½ cups (285g) cake flour
• ▢ 1 ½ cups (300g) sugar
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
• ▢ 2 ½ teaspoon (12g) baking powder
• ▢ 1 ½ sticks (169g) unsalted butter, slightly softened We cut into ½ inch slices on wax paper to soften slightly.
• ▢ 4 large eggs
• ▢ ¾ cup (190g) frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed.
• ▢ ½ cup (121g) milk
• ▢ 2 teaspoons (7g) lemon extract
• ▢ zest of 1 lemon
• ▢ pink coloring gel if you want the cake layers to be pink....we used AmeriColor Deep Pink

For the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

• ▢ 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter Slightly softened but cool to the touch.
• ▢ 16 oz Cream Cheese, softened.
• ▢ 2 teaspoons (8g) lemon juice (optional)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon (4g) lemon extract
• ▢ Zest from 1 lemon approximately 1 ½ teaspoons (3g)
• ▢ 6 to 6 ½ cups (690g - 747g) confectioners' sugar (Start with 6 cups and increase to your liking as needed.)

Instructions

For the Cake Layers

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
• Grease and flour two 8 x 2 inch round pans
• In the bowl of your mixer add the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Whisk to combine dry ingredients for 30 seconds.
• In a separate bowl, add the eggs, Pink Lemonade concentrate, lemon extract, zest & milk.
• With the mixer on low speed, add the slices of butter a few pieces at a time to the dry ingredients. Increase the mixer to medium speed and beat until the dry ingredients look crumbly like coarse sand. Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl.
• With the mixer on low speed, slowly add half of the egg mixture. Increase the mixer to medium speed for 1 ½ minutes. The batter will become thick and fluffy. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl. Add the pink gel color.
• Add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating for 20 seconds after each addition.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
• Let the cakes cool in the pan 10 minutes, then turn out.
• Works well for cupcakes
• Makes 7 cups batter

For the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

• Cut butter into ½ inch slices and add to the bowl of your mixer, beat until smooth.
• Cut the cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, beating until blended.
• Add the lemon juice and lemon zest. (You can add one teaspoon lemon extract for a stronger lemon flavor).
• Gradually add powdered sugar and mix until well blended.
• This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly and remix. Do not microwave to soften.

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