Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Lemon (or Yuzu) Meringue Layer Cake

May 27, 2025 at 8:08 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 Comments
Tags: baking, brekkie, cake

Another month, another layer cake. This time it’s a Lemon Meringue Layer Cake to celebrate Mardi’s birthday month! I actually used yuzu instead of lemon, because I have a stash of frozen yuzu juice at the moment…I rarely see it sold here, and I kind of go nuts whenever I do.

I cut the 8-inch cake recipe in half to make a 6-incher, my regular move when I’m just slicing for the two of us. This cake has two layers of soft lemon cake, a lemon soaking syrup, a lemon cream filling and lemon meringue frosting. I just straight up replaced the lemon in all the components with yuzu…well, apart from the soaking syrup, which I skipped making. I have a sweet yuzu liqueur that I found at the wine shop some time ago, and I used that in its place. (I am, btw, a huge proponent of brushing cake layers with sugar syrup or booze to keep them moist. I do this even if a recipe does not specify to, especially since just a 6-inch cake will last us three or four nights.)

I know there’s another recipe Dorie also calls “lemon cream” that she learned from Pierre Hermé. It’s a lemon curd that’s set with like two sticks of butter blended in at the end. That was what I excepted we’d be making for this cake, and I was kind of surprised that this lemon cream is more like a lemon pudding: milk-based and thickened with cornstarch. Not to worry- all that butter that’s absent from the lemon cream finds its way into the frosting instead! The meringue component of this cake is not a marshmallow fluff, but a Swiss meringue buttercream– the most luxuriously buttery-smooth cake coating in all of frosting-land (in my opinion, at least).

My taste tester said this was like wedding cake. It’s been a minute since I’ve made one of those, but I see what he meant. This comes together as a very grown up and elegant cake. I like the touch of adding a thin layer of extra lemon cream over top of the frosting. Now go and wish Mardi a happy birthday!

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

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Steph – yours is perfection (as usual!). A grown up cake indeed! I NEED a 6-inch cake tin after seeing everyone minify this one!

Comment by Mardi (eat. live. travel. write.)— May 28, 2025 #

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Yuzu in an incredible ingredient. Great idea indeed!

Comment by Shirley (Everopensauce)— May 28, 2025 #

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This Swiss meringue buttercream does seem to be ‘the best in all the land’ haha! I can’t remember making this before but I really enjoyed working with it and challenging myself to smooth it out hahaha! Your cake is stunning and I agree…a grand cake similar to a wedding cake.

Comment by isthisakeeper— May 28, 2025 #

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Yuzu sounds like a lovely flavor. I don’t know what I am missing with this frosting that everyone loves but me LOL.

Comment by Diane Zwang— June 1, 2025 #

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Such a beautiful and elegant cake! Yuzu makes it a bit on the exotic side as well.

Comment by Judy— June 9, 2025 #

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