This Lemon Truffle Cake is the perfect dessert for Easter, Mother’s Day or any special occasion. It’s a four-layer white cake with a creamy lemon truffle filling. The “lemon truffle” consists of lemon curd with white chocolate and cream cheese mixed in. It’s the best lemon cake recipe ever!
Lemon Truffle Cake
This Lemon Truffle Cake is one of the most delicious lemon cake recipes I’ve ever eaten. All of those layers of lemon make this such a pretty and elegant cake, but it’s really not that difficult to make. Just follow the directions step-by-step, and you’ll have this beautiful cake to share with your guests! I recently tested this recipe by serving it to friends at a dinner party. It’s safe to say that we all absolutely loved it. The cake is very tender, and those layers of lemon truffle filling are absolutely incredible. It’s kind of like a totally amazing lemon curd layer cake.
If you love lemon cakes, you might just want to try my lemon pound cake and my lemon cheesecake cake. They’re great desserts for lemon lovers!
Ingredients Needed:
- The Basics: All purpose flour, white sugar, baking powder, salt and vanilla extract
- Milk: I like to use whole milk to make the cake batter as rich and decadent as possible!
- Butter: It’s great to use unsalted butter in cake recipes like this one so you can control the amount of salt in the recipe.
- Eggs: You’ll need to separate eggs in this recipe, since you’ll need to use egg yolks and egg whites separately.
- Cornstarch: This is used to thicken the lemon truffle filling.
- Lemon: You’ll be using lemon zest and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
- White Chocolate: Look for a bar of white chocolate bark.
- Cream Cheese: Use full fat cream cheese. Bring it to room temperature.
- Cream: Make sure you purchase heavy whipping cream.
- Powdered Sugar: Sift it if it’s lumpy.
How to Make a Lemon Truffle Cake
Start with the homemade vanilla cake recipe listed in the recipe card at the end of this post. Lemon cake would make this cake far too lemony, so vanilla it is! Cut each of your baked cake layers in half so you have four layers. This is probably the trickiest part of the recipe because you want to try to get them fairly even. Just take your time and use a serrated knife. I use a large bread knife to do this.
Make the lemon truffle filling. Don’t skip this step. This filling is completely and totally addicting and amazing. You’ll want to dive in with a giant spoon! First you’ll make a classic lemon curd. And then you’ll combine some of the lemon curd with white chocolate and cream cheese to make the lemon truffle filling.
Place one cake layer cut-side-up on your platter. I like to tuck some waxed paper underneath the edges of the cake so I can pull them out after it has been decorated. This will help you decorate it neatly and not get the frosting all over your platter. Spread the first cake layer with some of the filling. Place a second cake layer on top and spread more filling. Add layer number three and more truffle filling. Place the last cake layer on top. This time with the cut-side facing down. Spread lemon curd on top. Spread the sides of the cake with sweetened whipped cream. Use a piping bag to pipe some whipped cream decoratively around the top and bottom edges. It doesn’t have to be perfect! Then, move the cake to the fridge to chill.
Recipe Tips
- It’s helpful to use “cake strips” (listed below in the equipment list). They help the cake layers stay nice and level as they bake.
- If you want to add a couple of drops of yellow food coloring to the lemon truffle filling, that will make it more of a bright yellow filling. I didn’t do that in the photos you see here.
- Don’t try to reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe. This cake recipe is excellent as written. Just consider it an indulgent, special occasion sweet treat!
- If the layers are wanting to slide around while you’re trying to frost the cake, stick a couple of skewers or chopsticks right through the top of the cake through all of the layers. That’ll hold it in place while you frost.
- Once given time to chill, all of the filling holds those cake layers together nicely, and it’s easy to slice.
- Fresh blueberries are a lovely garnish to serve with slices of this cake.
Helpful equipment to have on hand for this recipe:
What You’ll Love About This Lemon Truffle Cake:
- It’s a totally rich and delicious slice of cake. Everyone will think it came from a bakery.
- It’s a great cake to serve in the spring or summertime!
- If you have lemon lovers in your life, this is the cake to surprise them with.
Make Ahead Tips:
If you’re making this cake ahead of time, put together the layers and spread the lemon curd on top. Then wait until a few hours before serving to pipe on the whipped cream. Leftovers a day or two later are just as good as eating it the day it’s made!
If you are looking for more spring or summer cake recipes, you might enjoy my one layer Carrot Cake, Strawberry Cheesecake Cake or my Malted Mousse Cake. This Berry Mascarpone Layer Cake looks beautiful too.
Lemon Truffle Cake
Ingredients
CAKE:
- 2¼ cups all purpose flour
- 1⅔ cups granulated white sugar
- 1¼ cups milk
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 3½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 5 large egg whites
LEMON TRUFFLE FILLING:
- ¾ cup granulated white sugar
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup water
- 2 large egg yolks
- ⅓ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
- 6 ounces white chocolate, chopped
- 8 ounces cream cheese
WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING:
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.
PREPARE THE CAKE:
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, milk, butter, baking powder and salt. Blend until the butter is evenly mixed. Add the vanilla. Beat at low speed for 1 minute, then increase the speed to high and beat for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl constantly, beating until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Gently but thoroughly fold the whites into the cake batter. Pour evenly into the prepared pans.
- Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until the cakes are no longer jiggly in the center. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Split the cooled layers horizontally to make 4 layers in all. (I use a serrated knife… and gently saw around the center to cut even layers).
PREPARE THE FILLING:
- In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Whisk in water until smooth. Cook over medium-high heat until the mixture comes to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat to low and cook 2 minutes longer, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks with a fork. Slowly stir about ¼ cup of the hot mixture into the egg yolks, whisking quickly while adding the hot liquid. (You don’t want to create scrambled eggs, so be sure to add the hot mixture slowly, whisking it into the eggs as quickly as possible). Continue adding ¼ cup of the hot mixture to the eggs until you have warmed up the egg mixture. Whisk the egg yolk mixture back to the mixture in the saucepan. Cook over low heat until the mixture boils, whisking constantly, then continue to cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice, butter and zest. Transfer half of the hot filling to a small bowl and set aside to cool. Add the white chocolate to the hot filling in the saucepan and stir until the chocolate is melted; set aside. In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in the white chocolate mixture until light and smooth. At this point, you should have a small bowl of lemon curd and a bowl of white chocolate truffle filling.
- Spread one third of the white chocolate filling over one layer of the cake. Top with a second cake layer, then spread with one third more of the filling; top with a third cake layer and spread the remaining filling over. Top with the last cake layer and spread reserved lemon curd. Refrigerate, uncovered, until the filling is set (2 to 3 hours).
MAKE THE WHIPPED CREAM:
- In another bowl, whip the cream and sweeten it with the powdered sugar. Frost the sides of the cake with half of the whipped cream frosting. Put the remaining frosting into a pastry bag and pipe decoratively around the top and bottom edge of the cake. Refrigerate up to 8 hours before serving.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Amazing cake!!! This is going to be a huge hit at Easter and all spring!!!!
Hi Lori,
Thank you for sharing this recipe with us and for the excellent work and effort put into your website. I’ve been there, and have a keen understanding of the time it takes to develop and maintain one. In order to bring it this far it has to be a labor of love.
Quick question about the cake if I may; I would like to make this for a co-workers BD. Since it will sit out at room temp I would like to use something a little more durable than whip cream. Do you think a vanilla buttercream frosting would work well (taste wise) with the cake and lemon curd?
Thank you and please keep up the good work. 🙂
Yes, I think a buttercream would be fine w/ this cake.
I made this cake for my sister’s graduation party this weekend and it was fabulous!! I decorated it based on this cake: http://www.flickr.com/photos/saucydragonfly/224678456/, omitting the lemon curd on top, but it was still delicious. 🙂 Everyone raved about it.
Great to hear!
Thank you for this recipe! I made it for Easter and it was amazing. I blogged about it, with a link back to you.
I made this cake for Easter today and it is fabulous. It was worth the effort to make and is by far the moat delicious lemon cake I have ever eaten.
Excellent! We were just reminiscing about that cake recipe today…
Ms Lori,
I already have some lemon curd made up that i’d like to use with this so about how much lemon curd does it use? I’d love to be able to jsut add to the white choc’ & cream cheese! thanks!
renee
@renee, To be safe, I’d have between 2 and 3 cups of lemon curd on hand for this recipe.
Great recipe the truffle filling is amazing.I made this for my sisters birthday and it went down a treat.
I made this last night with a few minor changes, like using my own lemon curd recipe that I am comfortable with. YUM!! It is so good! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for this recipe! I made this for Easter dinner on Saturday at my in-laws and it was a huge hit. I will be making it for all special occasions! A very rewarding cake to make and put together, and surprisingly easy! The recipe is very fluid making it easy to coordinate all of the preparation without any panic 🙂
I made this for Easter. Didn’t come out nearly as pretty as the one above, but it tasted good! 🙂