Best Lemon Cream Cake

** UPDATED OCT. 30, 2021 ** This Olive Garden Copycat Lemon Cream Cake is not only a perfect copycat dupe for a now discontinued-yet-beloved menu item – it’s much, MUCH better. I live for this thing. Live for it, I tell you. And look – it’s really not on the menu any more.

So, I have a really bad habit of claiming that every cake I share is my favorite cake of all time. I tend to get a little hyperbolic, just overly enthused about cakes in general (my favorite food group) so I wax on and on here on MKL, each time I hurl a new recipe out into the food blogging ether. I’m a cake girl, what can I say? (You should have seen my wedding – it was basically more about the cake{s} than anything else to be honest.)

But if I could go back in time, I would have politely yet forcefully requested that this cake – this Lemon Cream Cake – be the star of the show. It’s absolutely wonderful, y’all.

How to make a great white cake

The best thing about this Lemon Cream Cake is the fact that it all revolves around a scratch white cake which, if you’ve ever tried your hand at white cakes before, you’ll know what I mean when I say that they are the trickiest of the cakes to get right. They’re almost always dry, tend to lack a nice, delicate crumb, and are often rather flavorless.

It’s all about the butter.

Why? No yolks. When you add yolks to a cake, it will no longer be snow white, right? Right. But the lack of yolks also compromises the cake’s ability to hold or establish any real moisture level. The richness decreases so, you have to ensure that you’re incorporating enough butter into the mix to nail that moist, delicate crumb that makes a white cake great.

Why are white cakes hard to make?

But this cake is FOOLPROOF. I promise. I honestly wish you could have been there to see me whipping it up to shoot for you yesterday.

I got distracted with my kiddos and sort of neglected the cake itself. I threw the batter in the wrong pan (I used a 9-inch cake pan, rather than the required springform), and then proceeded to stare helplessly, hopelessly into the oven as the batter spewed and splashed up and out of the pan, all over my oven racks and floor.

It looked like a living thing. It was … not a good feeling.

Except that it was. It was good! Somehow this cake batter is so awesome that even though I totally, royally screwed things up – it still managed to be the best. Now, tell me that isn’t a good sign.

Yes, this cake is built on great bones.

Copy Cat Olive Garden Lemon Cream Cake

The inspiration for this cake today initially came from my goal of adding recipes to my “Copycat Series,” which I honestly get a kick out of. But the recipe itself is not mine. This Lemon Cream Cake is my adaptation of a recipe I found over on Food, Folks and Fun.

Most of the recipes here on My Kitchen Little are straight-up originals, stemming from my own kitchen adventuring, tinkering, and discovering. Occasionally though, I’ll share someone else’s recipe say, from a cookbook, or I’ll enjoy an adaptation of a recipe so much, that I can’t not share it.

Such is the case with this Copycat Olive Garden Lemon Cream Cake. I love it so, so much, and my tweaks really are just to minimize ingredients a bit, and to make the overall cost of preparation a little lower.

What You’ll Need to make this Copycat Lemon Cream Cake

This cake reads long guys, I know. I’m sorry. It really can’t be helped, as there are three structural components to the finished cake.

1. We need to first make the best white cake ever. To do this, we’ll mix together some flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Standard op, yes? Yes.
2. Okay next comes the crumb. This part took me a few tries to get right (between us, it was trickier than I’d anticipated). A lot of recipes for things like this will ask you to use raw wheat flour which, technically, isn’t the safest of things to eat. Y’all, I didn’t even know this until a reader brought it to my attention. She was very matter-of-fact about it – stern but fair. I learned from her, this reader. And as such, I amended my recipe. I no longer call for flour in the crumb. Instead, we’ll use either superfine almond meal or oat flour. As neither one contains raw wheat, there are no glaring safety issues of which to speak. Good? Good.
3. Lastly, the luscious lemon cream. This stuff is what my dreams are frosted with guys. Just so good. It’s whipped cream cheese folded into sweetened vanilla whipped cream. I mean, come on!

Anyway, here’s the real-deal breakdown for you.

INGREDIENTS

For the Cake:

1 cup milk 

6 large egg whites

3 tsp vanilla extract

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 ¾ cups granulated sugar

4 tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

12 TBSP unsalted, room temperature butter cut into small pieces

For the Crumb:

2 cups oat flour or superfine almond meal

3 cup confectioner’s sugar

Zest of one large lemon (about 1 TBSP)

1 tsp vanilla extract 

8 TBSP unsalted, room temperature butter, cut into small pieces

For the Filling:

1.5 cups heavy whipping cream

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

The juice of one large lemon

2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

Optional: fruit for topping

How to make this Olive Garden Copycat Lemon Cream Cake

Again, this seems sort of hard. There are three moving parts so the whole thing reads like it might be a difficult cake to me. But I assure you it’s not. It’s just mixing things with your whisk and mixer and spreading creams and slapping on crumbs. That’s the really basic way of describing what goes on with this cake. It’s truly not hard.

If I had to pick a part in the process that was at all challenging I might say that it can be a little tricky to slice a cake in half. But keep in mind:

1. If it’s totally cool, it will forgive more sins (it won’t break and fall apart on you).
2. Use a big, long (preferably serrated) knife. This is pretty important.
3. Take your time.

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Thoroughly butter a 9-inch springform pan.

To make the batter, whisk the eggs whites in a medium bowl until frothy. Add the milk and vanilla. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large mixing bowl, using a hand-held mixer) mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well-blended. Add the butter and mix to cut it in. 

Add half of the milk mixture and mix to combine. Add the rest of the milk mixture and mix/beat on high until smooth – about 15 seconds or so. Pour the batter into the greased pan and bake until lightly golden on top and set inside; about 40 to 45 minutes. Use a cake tester to determine when it’s done. (NOTE: I also like to put a sheet pan underneath my baking cakes, to catch any drips or spills if that should ever occur). 

Cool for at least 10 minutes in the pan before removing it. Cool completely before filling; takes about an hour or so. 

Meanwhile, prepare the crumb. In a mixing bowl, combine the oat flour or almond meal, confectioner’s sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla. Add the butter and, using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until you have a coarse crumb. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before use. 

Make the filling: whip the cream on high to stiff peaks; about 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl for now. In the same bowl, whip together the cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar. vanilla, and lemon juice. Fold the cream in and gently mix until smooth and combined.

When the cake is totally cool, split it in half across the equator (width-wise), creating a top and bottom. I use a large serrated knife for this. Place the bottom half on your cake plate and top with all but 1 ¼ cups of the lemon cream, spreading it evenly. 

Place the top cake half on the cream and then frost with the remaining cream, creating a thin layer all around the edges and top of the cake. 

Lastly, cover the top and sides of the cake with the chilled crumb coating, pressing it into the sides. Serve at room temperature.

This cake will store, covered, at room temperature for up to 3 days. At that point, I never have any left, but if I do – I pop it in the fridge.

If you like the looks of this Copycat Lemon Cream Cake, you might also enjoy:

French Vanilla Gooey Butter Cake with Strawberries

Juicy Citrus Italian Cream Cake

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