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Lemon Layer Cake with Fresh Berries

Moist and delicious gluten-free lemon cake is layered with coconut whipped cream and fresh berries. The perfect dessert to welcome spring!

Lemon Layer Cake with Fresh Berries | Free of gluten, dairy, and refined sugar
Spring is my favorite time of year, aside from fall. I love the in-between seasons when the weather’s more mild and I get to bring out my clothes that have been in storage for the last several months. It’s almost like having a new wardrobe. Isn’t it nice to find clothes you forgot you had? 😉 

Having a cold on top of allergies for the last several days hasn’t been fun, but the sun shining and the birds chirping somehow makes it a bit more bearable. The sickness started from my hubby who must’ve picked something up from work. He passed it to me and it has making its way through the family. Of course my hubby is totally better now, as I sit around with my tissues, sneezing every five minutes. It’s so not fair. On top of that he keeps reminding me that this is how he felt a few days ago…”yep, that’s exactly how I felt,” and “see, I wasn’t exaggerating.” I’m like, of course this is how you felt, you’re the one who brought the sickness into the house and infected the rest of us! 

Lemon Layer Cake with Fresh Berries | Free of gluten, dairy, and refined sugarLemon Layer Cake with Fresh Berries | Free of gluten, dairy, and refined sugarLemon Layer Cake with Fresh Berries | Free of gluten, dairy, and refined sugar
Through my annoying cold, I mustered up the energy to bake and I knew exactly how I wanted to celebrate—with cake, of course! After all, this beautiful season, where everything’s in bloom and the weather has finally warmed up a bit, deserves to be celebrated! With a hint of lemon and fresh berries, I can’t think of another cake that screams spring like this one does! Enjoy!

Lemon Layer Cake with Fresh Berries
 
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Moist and delicious gluten-free lemon cake is layered with coconut whipped cream and mixed berries. The perfect dessert to welcome spring!
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert, Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar Free
Serves: 8-inch cake
Ingredients
Lemon-Berry Cake
  • 2 cups gluten-free flour (I use Bobs Red Mill Gluten-Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour)
  • 1 cup Super Fine Blanched Almond Flour* (see notes below for substitution)
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup softened butter (can use dairy-free)
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 1 cup honey or maple syrup (or combo of both)
  • ⅔ cup almond milk or other milk of choice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • zest of 2-3 large lemons, to taste
  • Lemon Whipped Cream (recipe below)
  • 3-4 cups mixed berries (some sliced and halved for in between layers)
  • edible flowers, optional
Lemon Whipped Cream :
  • 16 oz. regular or dairy-free cream cheese or mascarpone
  • 1–2 (14 oz) cans coconut cream or full-fat coconut milk refrigerated overnight (about 1¾ cup firm coconut cream, liquid discarded. Can also use 1 cup regular whipping cream if not dairy-free)
  • 3-5 tablespoons honey or other sweetener of choice (more or less to taste)
  • juice and zest from 1 lemon (more or less to taste)
Instructions
Cake:
  1. This cake makes two 8-inch or three 6-inch cakes. To make a 3 layer 8-inch cake, use 1½ cake recipe.
  2. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease cake pans and line the bottom with a parchment paper circle (cut to fit the bottom.) Set aside.
  3. Combine flours, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add softened butter, eggs, coconut oil and sweetener. Begin beating together with the flour mixture. Slowly mix in the milk, vanilla extract, and lemon zest. Scrape the bottom of the bowl to make sure all the flower is evenly incorporated.
  4. Evenly distribute cake batter into the pans and place on the middle rack in the preheated oven. Bake for 25-35 minutes OR until cake is golden brown, center is set, and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Bake time will vary upon pan and thickness of batter.
  5. Remove from the oven and let cool for a bit, then run a knife along the edge of the cake (if sticking to the pan) and invert cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Whipped Cream:
  1. In a large mixing bowl, begin to beat the cream cheese until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. Add sweetener and lemon juice/zest and continue to beat until fluffy. Add cold, hardened coconut cream and beat on high until light and fluffy, a few more minutes. Taste and adjust sweetener or lemon flavoring. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.
  2. If using regular whipping cream, beat whipping cream separately until fluffy (about 3-4 minutes) and then fold it into the cream cheese mixture.
Putting it together:
  1. Place one of the fully cooled cakes onto your cake plate. Top with ⅓ or ½ of the whipped cream (depending on how many cake you have) and about 1 cup of sliced berries.
  2. Top with another cake layer and repeat the process.
  3. At the end, top cake with remaining whipped cream and a pile of whole and halved berries. Decorate with edible flowers and a light dusting of powdered sugar (optional).
  4. Serve right away and store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.
  5. *If you need to substitute almond flour, use the cake in this recipe. Just add the lemon zest from this recipe to keep the lemon flavor.
  6. Cake recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour

You May Also Enjoy These Similar Recipes:

Vegan Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Buttercream

Vegan Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Buttercream | Gluten-free variation included!

Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes with Fresh Berries

Berry Filled Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Frosting

Berry Filled Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Frosting | Free of gluten and refined sugar. Can also be adapted to be dairy free.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. hello!
    Can i use your cake pictures? 🙂
    i had to make homepage for school and now i’m looking for pictures so i can make my homepage look pretty and cool!

    Reply

  2. Such a GORGEOUS cake! My husband was actually just requesting a cake like this one, so I’ll definitely have to keep this in mind for this summer 🙂 Can’t WAIT to try!

    Reply

  3. This cake looks delicious!!! I saw your vegan vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream and I want to use the strawberry buttercream and the lemon cake recipe from this page. I was wondering if this recipe could be used to make two 9-inch cakes, instead of three 8-inch cakes? Thank-you!

    Reply

    • Hi Solange! Thank you very much! You can use two 9-inch pans, but there will likely be a little extra batter left over. You can probably make a few cupcakes or a small sample cake to enjoy aside from the main cake. Let me know how it goes!! Enjoy!

      Reply

      • I realized that the lemon cake was not vegan because of the eggs, so I added the lemon zest from this cake and some extra lemon juice in the vanilla cake and it was wonderful. The buttercream was so fluffy and it made such a nice vegan treat for the holiday. I could never find a strawberry lemonade cake that I liked and combining the recipes (kind of) was so yummy! I might’ve already cut a slice…

        Reply

        • I’m so happy you enjoyed the cake, Solange! Adding lemon flavor to the vanilla cake is very delicious idea, especially in combination with strawberry buttercream! I may just have to go and recreate that cake for myself this weekend!! Thanks for stopping back by to let me know how it turned out for you too!! Have a wonderful weekend!

          Reply

    • Hi Cali! The white flowers are strawberry blossoms and the purple were some flower I picked up at my local organic nursery. Some of the others I like to use though, that are also edible, are pansies, violas, and micro dianthus. Hope that helps!

      Reply

  5. I love your yummy recipes Joscelyn!
    I just tried to make your cake and all seemed fine when I took it out of oven. However, it “collapsed” shortly after. Any idea why would that happen? I followed your recipe exactly.
    Thank you

    Reply

    • Hi Ilona, thank you for the sweet compliment! Sorry that happened to your cake! I sometimes find that gluten-free cakes will shrink slightly after coming out of the oven, unlike the ones I make that use regular all-purpose flour, which often have a dome. I’ve experimented in the past with adding less liquid, which helps it dome better, but it was a little too dry for my liking. I prefer a very moist cake, even if it shrinks a little 😉 Now, if it collapsed a lot, then it’s possible it wasn’t fully cooked in the center or that too much liquid/not enough flour was added. If you can give me a little more detail, I’ll try and help you troubleshoot what could’ve went wrong!

      Reply

  7. Could you substitute the gluten free flour for request flour and stil use almond flour with it? Or would it ruin the cake? I want to make it for my parents anniversary today but I scared to make a gluten free cake haha

    Reply

      • Haha, darn spell check! Hi Emily, yes I’m thinking it would work as I often swap out gf flour for all-purpose flour, although I haven’t tried it with this particular recipe. Please let me know how it turns out if you give it a try though and maybe I can update the recipe to include both! Hope your parents have a wonderful anniversary! 🙂

        Reply

  9. You are just Awesome! I think you make the most delicious cakes Joscelyn. I just cannot hold my mouth from watering on each and every recipe you make. Pinning of course!

    Reply

  14. You make the most delicious cakes Joscelyn and this one is no exception! IT is indeed perfect for Spring and I love how pretty it looks with all the berries and flowers 🙂 Hope your cold is better now 🙂

    Reply

    • Aw, thank you sweet friend! I love how Spring inspires so many colors and flavors. I really appreciate how you always find such nice things to say. You are one of the most thoughtful, considerate people I know. Have a lovely weekend! xoxo

      Reply

  23. This is INSANELY beautiful and looks so delicious!! I absolutely love lemon and berries – can’t wait to make this this summer and literally stick my face in it, haha!

    Reply

  30. My husband LOVES anything lemon so this is getting Pinned! The edible flowers put it over the top (in a good way!) for company. Soooo pretty.

    Reply

  33. I hope you feel better soon.
    This cake looks DELICIOUS!!! Baking is not something I do often, but I should because I love desserts. Then again I might eat it all in a day or two, lol!

    Reply

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