Do you enjoy baking? Growing up, I loved dabbling in the kitchen and once I started my own daycare at the age of 18, I’d even make the kids a special birthday cake on each of their birthdays. Over the years, life got busy and my ambition waned for awhile. But I’ve been bitten by the baking bug again and have spent a lot of time in the kitchen in the last few months trying out new breads and other recipes. So when I saw that Weldon Owen now has a new recipe book on cakes, I really wanted to check it out.
Sending a big thank you to Weldon Owen for sending me their new Naked Cakes recipe book!
Naked Cakes by Lyndel Miller is a hardcover book that promises beautiful results for the lazy bakers. It’s not that I would consider myself a lazy baker on all accounts, but I’m a little cake shy after my son’s last birthday cake split and cracked all over and had me scrambling to fix at the last minute. So I thought that this book sounded like a good option to get me back into the groove. Since I absolutely LOVE anything lemon, I quickly settled on the Lemonade Cake.
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup unsalted butter, soft
- 1 cup superfine sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- zest of 1 lemon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup plan Greek-style yogurt
- ¼ cup lemon juice, strained
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Lightly grease an 8 inch round cake pan.
- Sift flour, baking powder, and baking soda into a large bowl and combine well.
- Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each and scraping sides occasionally.
- Add vanilla, lemon zest, and salt. Beat till just combined.
- With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture and yogurt in alternating batches until just combined.
- Do NOT over beat.
- Add lemon juice and stir till just combined.
- Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes or till cake is golden and a skewer comes out clean.
- Cool for 10 minutes before removing cake from pan.
- Finish cooling on wire rack.
- Serve topped with powder sugar and berries or top with a delicious buttercream, cream cheese, or lemon frosting.
I decided to make this delicious cake to surprise the volunteers at our local MOPS. They work so hard caring for our kiddos as the moms get two hours to gather, fellowship, learn, and have fun sans kiddos. With that being the case, I actually doubled this recipe and baked it in a 10 inch round cake pan. Since I’m a big frosting lover, I decided to top with a cream cheese and lemon flavored frosting (recipe on page 112 and I just added switched out the vanilla extract for lemon extract) and topped with some fresh cut strawberries. I also sprinkled a little more lemon zest to create the perfect finishing touch.
Overall, I was thrilled with how easy this cake was to make! And, in my opinion, the presentation looks so great that I can hardly believe how little effort it took.
Another thing to note is that the Naked Cakes Book also contains chapters on sweet finishes, hand made decorations, and even ideas on how to pull the party together. If I had to change one thing, I just wish that every single recipe contained a photo of the finished product as I’m a visual person. However, this Lemonade Cake didn’t have a photo and I’m thrilled with my results!
Learn More: Head over to Weldon Owen to see for yourself the great selection of products they offer.
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Win It: Weldon Owen is generously offering one of our lucky readers their very own copy of Naked Cakes! This giveaway is open to the US and Canada and will end May 15th, 2017. For your chance to win, enter the Giveaway Tools below. Good luck!
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I’m a city girl turned country by my awesome husband and we have three busy boys and two darling daughters. I love spending time with my family, reading Karen Kingsbury novels, and catching up with friends while our kiddos have play dates. I’m blessed beyond measure and can’t wait to see what God has in store.
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This post currently has 21 responses.
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Sarah L
Your lemonade cake looks so very good. I love lemon and how easy this is.
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Faith
Those cakes look sooooo yummy! They have lots of great books too.
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gloria patterson
I would love to sample ever one of these cakes, as long as they were made by someone else. My baking skills are on the level grade 1 or less. For reason I just cannot make anything that taste good.
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The first thing I though of when I read NAKED CAKES RECIPE BOOK, was back a lot of year and it was THE NAKED CHIEF. All of these cakes look so good and I want of bite of each
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Barrie
This lemonade cake looks amazing. I think I’ll make it for my teen when she comes home for fall break.
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The name of the cake caught me first then the picture of the cake…………… looks and sounds so good. I am going to print this out and go visit my sister in law this weekend and let her make it for me 🙂
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Kimberly Flickinger
This cake sounds delicious. Definitely going to keep this recipe in mind.
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This cake sounds delicious. Definitely going to keep this recipe in mind.
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This cake sounds delicious. Definitely going to keep this recipe in mind.
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Dorothy Boucher
This cake first hand I thought was a bit different because I could never image having lemon with strawberries but then after reading whats inside and looking at this delicious! cake, Oh yes!! its one of those cakes you have to try.
@tisonlyme143 -
Mary Gardner
This cake reminds me so much of spring and summer! It will be a delicious treat for us while we are waiting on warm weather to return!
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Amber B
I may have to make this for our upcoming MOPS meeting when I’m in charge of bringing snack! It looks amazing 🙂 I’m not a huge cake person but this is really appealing to me regardless.
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Heather
This cake looks delicious!! Perfect for those summer time strawberries and picnics! Beautiful as well!
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melanie huttner
This cake looks beautiful and impressive. I think I’ll serve it at my Christmas dinner!
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MeMe R
Well I wasn’t hungry until I saw this cake on the side of the page I was looking at and then started reading the recipe and looking at the other beautiful cakes. Oh something about fresh lemon zest in any recipe gets me going. It really has the most flavor, the zest of any fruit. This book looks lovely and I am sad that I missed out on the giveaway.
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Amy D
This is my type of cake! I would top this with cream cheese frosting with a hint of lemon as well. The strawberries make the perfect touch.
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Roger Nusbaum
Can you please define superfine sugar? Does this mean sifted sugar or am I looking for something specific in the store that I’ve never seen before. Thanks.
I enjoyed following a link to a grasshopper pie.