Romantic Rose & Lemon Cake

By Lucy Parissi

4.67 from 9 votes

, Updated Jan 18, 2021

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This delicately scented Rose & Lemon Cake is perfect for Valentine’s day, baby or wedding showers. Decorate with fresh flowers or dried rose petals – so romantic!

If you love lemon desserts you will adore my Lemon Drizzle Cake

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The idea for this cake came to me in half-asleep reverie. I frequently have recipe-related dreams – sad as it is to admit that!

I was picturing a very ethereal, romantic and slightly retro cake and, for once, I was able to realise the exact image of what I imagined… and I can’t tell you how amazing that is. In my dream there were also rose macarons… which I did make but at a later date (although I posted that recipe first just to confuse everyone).

Rose and Lemon Cake

I love using fresh roses and rosewater in my recipes… As a flavour it is very delicate and can be a little cloying so I undercut if with some lemon!

If you are looking for a sweet treat to surprise your Valentine with, I don’t think you need to look any further… This is just the cake for sharing with a loved one – it would also work well as a Mother’s Day bake or a wedding shower dessert.

It is a cake flushed with the promise of spring, buttery, sweet (but definitely not cloying) and just altogether delightful. Serve with tea or even lemonade – but definitely not coffee… this is possibly the only one of my bakes that is not coffee compatible!

I baked this in the Wilton Easy Layer cake pans from Lakeland which are only 15cm (6in) – the cake is quite tall at five layers but will only yield about 6 generous slices. However the recipe can be doubled very easily if you wanted to bake a full-sized cake using normal cake tins.

A word of caution about the Wilton cake tins – although the look as if nothing would ever stick to them that could not be further from the truth. Grease them well – preferably with butter and flour rather than cake release – otherwise your lovely cake layers will be destroyed. I speak from experience!

HAVE YOU MADE MY ROSE AND LEMON CAKE RECIPE? Post a photo on my Facebook page, share it on Instagram, or save it to Pinterest with the tag #supergoldenbakes and make my day!

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4.67 from 9 votes

Perfectly Romantic Rose & Lemon Cake

By Lucy Parissi | Supergolden Bakes

This delicately scented rose and lemon layer cake is perfect for Valentine’s day, baby or wedding showers.

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 8

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Ingredients

• ▢ Rose & Lemon buttercream
• ▢ 230 g | 2 sticks | 8.1oz unsalted butter cubed
• ▢ 500 g | 17.64oz icing powdered sugar, sifted (if you can be bothered!)
• ▢ 1 tbsp hot water if butter is cold
• ▢ 1-2 tbsp rose water
• ▢ juice of 1 lemon
• ▢ 1 tbsp dried edible rose petals crushed to a powder
• ▢ 120 ml | 1/2 cup double cream
• ▢ a few drops pink food colouring optional
• ▢ Rose & Lemon Layer Cake
• ▢ 165 g | 5.8oz plain flour
• ▢ 165 g | 5.8oz caster sugar
• ▢ 40 g | 1.4oz ground almonds
• ▢ ½ tbsp baking powder
• ▢ ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ▢ ¼ tsp salt
• ▢ –
• ▢ 1 tbsp rose water look for Steenbergs brand
• ▢ 1 tbsp rose petals crushed to a powder
• ▢ 100 g | 3.5oz unsalted butter cold and cubed
• ▢ 2 large eggs
• ▢ zest of 1 lemon
• ▢ 100 ml | 3.5 fl oz buttermilk
• ▢ 2 tbsp lemon juice
• ▢ –
• ▢ 2-3 tbsp simple syrup
• ▢ 1 tbsp gin
• ▢ 1 tbsp rose water

Instructions 

• Make the buttercream. Put the butter and icing sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk. Slowly start beating together, adding a few drops hot water if the butter is cold.
• Increase the speed to maximum and whisk for a few minutes until fluffy.
• Stop the machine and scrape the bottom and sides with a spatula. Add the rose water, lemon juice, rose petals and food colouring if using. Whisk together.
• Gradually add the double cream and whisk until thoroughly mixed in – 3-4 minutes. The buttercream should be smooth and hold firm peaks. If it’s too runny, add a little more icing sugar.
• Make the cake. Preheat the oven to 170C (340F). Grease and flour the cake pans, dusting off any excess.
• Sift all the dry ingredients and add them to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
• Add the cubed butter and mix until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
• Add the eggs, one at a time and mix them in.
• Add the buttermilk, rose water, rose petals, lemon juice & zest and beat together. Stop the mixer and scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl to make sure the batter is thoroughly mixed.
• Carefully divide between the pans (don’t overfill) and bake for 12-15 minutes if you are using mini cake tins and 23-25 minutes if using larger tins. Cool on a wire rack.
• Mix the simple syrup, gin and rose water together and brush over the cake layers.
• Add buttercream to the cake layers and sandwich together. Do a crumb coat and chill the cake for 30 minutes before adding more buttercream with a palette knife to frost the entire cake (you can also pipe it if you wish). Decorate with sprinkles or a scattering of dried edible rose petals.

Notes

To make a large layer cake double the recipe and use 3 or 4 larger cake tins.
You can buy simple (sugar) syrup but it also very easy to make. Put equal amounts sugar and water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring until sugar dissolves – couple of minutes.

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