Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

This lemon buttermilk sheet cake is so soft and tender, and it's loaded with the sweet/tart flavor of lemon.

The cake itself contains three tablespoons of lemon zest and 1/4 cup of lemon juice, making it super lemony. You actually beat the lemon zest and the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer to release the lemon flavor in the zest. Some of this sugary lemon zest is reserved to sprinkle over the delicious glaze on this cake, and the rest is beaten into the butter until the mixture is light and fluffy.

This cake is made with cake flour, which resulted in such a nice soft and velvety crumb. The glaze on this cake contains even more lemon juice and confectioners sugar, which, after it is spread over the cake, is sprinkled with the reserved lemon sugar.

As much as I bake, I make very few cakes, mostly because I'm not particularly good at making food look pretty. I'm better at making a loaf of bread that splits open while baking into a craggy top. This is one of the reasons why I love this cake. First, it's a sheet pan cake, so there's no fussing with layers and getting them straight. Second, there's no frosting to mess up! Just pour the glaze over the top of the cake and sprinkle it with the lemon sugar.

However, I did join a new baking group, The Cake Slice Bakers. We are baking our way through the book The Perfect Cake from America's Test Kitchen. I figured it would force me to flex some new baking muscles and finally learn how to made beautiful cakes. After all, I learned how to bake bread from books, so why not cake?

This month I took the easy way out and made this sheet pan cake. Baby steps...

I took this cake to work and the slices flew of the plate. I wish I could share the recipe with you but the publisher did not give permission. If you have the August/September, 2008 issue of Cook's Country Magazine, it's in there. You can find it here as well. Or get the book! You won't regret it. So many delicious cakes.

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The Perfect Cake from America's Test Kitchen #atkcake. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes, or visit our blog where the links are updated each month. If you are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

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