Lemon Almond Cake

Lemon and almond are a delicious pair in this elegant layered Lemon Almond Cake recipe!

We are huge fans of lemon cakes as well as almond cakes but had never considered combining the two until we recently saw this cake flavor on a local bakery menu. It is heavenly!

You are going to love this recipe, which combines our popular Lemon Buttermilk Cake with our scratch Almond Cake recipe. This cake is light, moist, and has the perfect balance of lemon and almond flavor.

Why we Love It

There are so many reasons to love this lemon almond cake!

• Super moist and lemony cake layers with a hint of almond
• Almond Cream Cheese frosting is perfect with this cake and is so easy to make.
• Finely chopped almonds give an extra boost of almond flavor to the lemony cake layers.
• Cake flour and buttermilk make this recipe extra soft and tender.
• Perfect cake or special occasions year-round. Makes a great birthday cake recipe, bridal shower cake, baby shower cake, and more!

Key Ingredients for Lemon Almond Cake

Here's a quick look at the star ingredients for the cake layers in today's recipe. Make sure to check out the recipe card at the bottom of this post for the full, printable list of ingredients and instructions!

Buttermilk: We use whole buttermilk rather than reduced fat for added richness. The extra boost of acidity from buttermilk softens the strands of gluten in the cake batter, resulting in a more tender cake!

Cake Flour: Cake flour has a lower protein content, which which results in a softer cake.

Lemon Zest and Lemon Juice: Lemon juice adds more acidity to the cake batter, which softens the gluten. While it adds some lemon flavor, it is the lemon extract and lemon zest that adds the biggest boost of lemon!

Sliced Almonds The cake pans are sprinkled with sliced almonds (finely chopped in blender) before batter is added to the pan. You could do the same with chopped slivered almonds, but we like the look of the sliced almonds for decorating the frosted cake.

How to Make Lemon Almond Cake

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8×2 inch round pans.
• Chop sliced almonds in bullet blender or food processor (finely chop or rough chop for more crunch). You can put them in a ziplock and break up with a rolling pin if you don't have a blender.
• Sprinkle the half cup of almonds evenly over the three prepared cake pans.

• In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds. Set aside

• In another bowl, add the buttermilk, vegetable oil, lemon zest, almond extract, lemon extract and lemon juice.  Set aside.

• In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.

• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk has blended in.

• With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of liquid). After the last addition, mix just until incorporated.

• Divide batter between three prepared 8 inch cake pans, scooping the batter over the chopped almonds. Spread batter with back of a spoon to even it out.

• Bake at 350 degrees for 22-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just few crumbs attached. Let cool 10 minutes and turn out.

Almond Cream Cheese Frosting

To me, the lemon almond cake layers have a bit more lemon flavor than almond. To balance this, we went with an almond frosting. This almond cream cheese frosting is based on our favorite cream cheese frosting recipe. It is so easy to make!

This frosting is a simple combination of softened butter, softened cream cheese frosting, a pinch of salt, confectioners sugar, and for today's recipe, almond extract. It is delicious!

*As always, keep in mind that cream cheese frostings are bit on the softer side. For this reason, you may need to chill the frosting for a bit if it gets too soft while decorating with it.

Also, cakes that are decorated with cream cheese frosting should be refrigerated until within 2-3 hours of serving. If you need a less perishable option, you can also use our classic vanilla buttercream frosting recipe with 1-2 teaspoons of almond extract added to it.

Assembling and Decorating the Lemon Almond Cake

Once the cake layers have completely cooled, you can frost the cake!

• Place the first lemon almond cake layer on the cake pedestal or cake base. Spread with a layer of almond cream cheese frosting. Repeat for the second layer, top with the third layer.

• Fill in any gaps between the layers with frosting. Then, apply a thin layer (crumb coat) of frosting on top and around the sides of the cake. At this point, I like to chill the cake in the freezer for 15 minutes (or longer in the refrigerator to firm everything up)
• Apply the second layer of frosting and decorate however you like! We added texture with a small offset spatula, and added a top border with a 1M (large star) piping tip.
• We then added a sliced almond bottom border and decorated the top border here and there with almonds as well.

Recipe FAQs

More Cakes

We have made many lemon cakes over the years!

Some of our most popular (aside from our lemon buttermilk cake mentioned at the beginning of this post) are our lemon cake from scratch, lemon cake mix recipe, and lemon pound cake, and lemon coconut cake.

Keep these recipes in mind the next time you have a craving for lemony goodness.

Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you enjoy this recipe. Don't miss our full collection of cake recipes, which includes favorite cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!

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You'll find basics like how to make a cake, easy ways to frost a cake, as well as elegant cake tutorials and themed birthday cake ideas!