Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Name: Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake
Yield: Serves 16
Ingredients: 2 1/2 cups (10 ounces), cake flour; 1 teaspoon, baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon, baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon, salt; 3/4 cup, buttermilk, room temperature; 3 tablespoons, grated lemon zest from 3 lemons; 1/4 cup, lemon juice from 3 lemons; 1 teaspoon, vanilla extract; 1 3/4 cup (12¼ ounces), granulated sugar; 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks), unsalted butter, softened; 3 large, eggs, room temperature; 1 , egg yolk, room temperature; 3 cups (12 ounces), confectioners' sugar; 3 tablespoons, lemon juice; 2 tablespoons, buttermilk

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Appears in Cook's Country August/September 2008

Desserts or Baked Goods

Cakes

A sweet-tart lemon sheet cake holds a lot of promise as a light summer dessert-but sheet cakes are hard to bake evenly, and we wanted bright, not sour, lemon flavor. In our recipe, tangy buttermilk reinforces the lemon flavor in both the cake and glaze.

SERVES16

TIME1¼ hours, plus 2 hours cooling

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS

We chose cake flour for our Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake recipe because it yielded a fine, velvety crumb. We used the creaming method—beat the butter and sugar together before adding the wet and dry ingredients—to develop structure and heigh...

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