On the Kids Baking Championship finale, Duff and co-judge Valerie Bertinelli chose Rebecca Beales’s 3-tiered, 12-layer cake as the best of the bunch. Her winning dessert is a version of this Lemon Chiffon Cake with Strawberry Frosting that she bakes on Mother’s Day. “It’s my mom’s favorite because she loves lemon and strawberry,” Rebecca says.
| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 2 hr |
| Prep: | 1 hr |
| Inactive: | 30 min |
| Cook: | 30 min |
| Yield: | 8 to 10 servings |
| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 2 hr |
| Prep: | 1 hr |
| Inactive: | 30 min |
| Cook: | 30 min |
| Yield: | 8 to 10 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups cake flour
- 1 1/3 cups superfine sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
- 6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest, plus 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 3/4 cup diced strawberries
- 2 7.5-ounce jars marshmallow cream
- 3 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottoms of three 8-inch round ungreased cake pans with parchment paper. Sift the flour, 1 cup superfine sugar, the baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Whisk the oil, 1/2 cup cold water, the egg yolks, lemon zest and 2 teaspoons lemon juice in a medium bowl until well combined. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the oil mixture; stir with a rubber spatula until smooth. Set aside.
- Beat the egg whites and the remaining 1 teaspoon lemon juice in a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/3 cup superfine sugar; continue beating until stiff peaks form, 3 to 4 minutes. Fold about one-third of the beaten egg whites into the batter with a rubber spatula, then fold in the rest until just combined.
- Divide the batter among the prepared pans and smooth evenly. Bake until the centers spring back when gently pressed, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the cakes to a rack and let cool completely in the pans.
- Meanwhile, make the frosting: Puree the strawberries in a food processor until smooth; strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids with a rubber spatula. Beat the marshmallow cream in a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, until incorporated, then beat in the strawberry puree. Reduce the mixer speed to low; gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until combined.
- Assemble the cake: Run a knife around the edges of the cakes and invert onto the rack; remove the parchment. Put 1 cake layer on a cake stand or serving plate. Spread with about 1/3 cup frosting. Top with another cake layer; spread with another 1/3 cup frosting. Top with the remaining cake layer, then cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 10 servings |
| Calories | 733 |
| Total Fat | 42 g |
| Saturated Fat | 19 g |
| Carbohydrates | 85 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Sugar | 52 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Cholesterol | 184 mg |
| Sodium | 270 mg |
| Serving Size | 1 of 10 servings |
| Calories | 733 |
| Total Fat | 42 g |
| Saturated Fat | 19 g |
| Carbohydrates | 85 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Sugar | 52 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Cholesterol | 184 mg |
| Sodium | 270 mg |
Reviews
I see that many others have made this cake with not so good results! I made it and it was perfect! It did take a bit of time and patience though. I however, did not make the frosting. I opted for my strawberry-cream cheese frosting recipe.
Horrible frosting, baking time way too long
⚠⚠⚠ EPIC FAIL!!!⚠⚠⚠
Okay, this recipe is a total freakin LIE.
Anyone who posts a good review on it or claims good results is a LIAR. First of all, I baked the cake,,, 10 minutes less time than the recipe called for and it was a good thing I was keeping an eye on it because it was still burnt around the edges and my oven is brand spanking new and thermometer tested so don’t question it because I KNOW the temperature is right. So then I proceeded to make the frosting per the directions in the recipe EXACTLY. It was like soup. I knew there was no way I was going to be spreading that on anything. So, having scraped the burnt edges off of the cake, I proceeded to remake the frosting per specs in the recipe and it turned out the same,,, SOUP! So then, in an attempt to fix it, I added half of a large bag of powdered sugar into the frosting mix to thicken it up. This was to no avail. Still way too runny to spread onto anything. So then I put the frosting into the refrigerator to chill it in hopes that it would get firmer so that maybe I could quickly spread it on and just slam the whole thing back into the refrigerator really quickly to keep it cold enough for to keep it from running off. As you can imagine, it was still a NO GO. I attempted to frost the thing like it shows in the directions and the photos and the stuff just ran off all over my counter and onto my floor. I wish I could post a photo but apparently there is no means to do that on here. I cook and bake A LOT and consider myself to be, at the very least, intermediate level self-taught gourmet. This recipe does NOT WORK. I would try the whole thing again from scratch but I am not going to waste the ingredients just to prove a point when there’s no way to post a photo. Moral of the story is,,, DON’T TRY IT! IT’S NOT WORTH IT!
I give this a one star rating only because it’s the lowest rating possible to be given here. If it were possible to be giving it something less than zero, I WOULD.
On a positive note, all of the frosting that I did scrape off the edge of the cake plate and the counter with a spatula that I licked off was delicious but there was so much of it that I made myself ill. I would have to say this is definitely one of the worst recipes that I have ever attempted in my whole entire life and I am 52 years old.
Thanks for looking and have a great day but if you tried to make this recipe, then your day is already ruined.
I haven’t made this, but this recipe seems like it should include some water in the caked batter.
It was okay. I saw this and straightaway wanted to make it for my mom’s bday. I gathered all the ingredients, etc. and when I checked the reviews on here, I started getting skeptical about the recipe. I figured I’d try it anyway despite the reviews of it being too dry or the frosting being too buttery. I should have listened to them though!! The cake ended up not rising at all in the pans. It started burning just 20 minutes into baking it in the oven. I couldn’t bake it as long as I was supposed to because it would have burned completely, so I took it out sooner and had a hard time getting the cake out of the pans as it stuck like crazy on the sides. They were so thin that I considered just throwing them in the trash. But it was too late to do that so I ended up continuing on and frosting it with the hopes of making it work. The frosting ended up being too thin and way too sweet, and the cake to frosting sweetness ratio was just way too equal that they didn’t balance each other out. So overall the cake was so thin and dried out, it also had weird air bubbles in it, and it was just way too sweet.
I was having a baking play date with a couple young girls who have aspirations of competing in the Kids Baking Championship; this recipe was their choice. The end result was good, not great. The cake was more moist than I expected, but it didn’t rise as much as the picture made me believe it would would (not sure how much was our error); could have used more lemon flavor. The frosting was disappointing–too buttery, strawberry flavor was light, and we had to double the powdered sugar. To be fair, we had to improvise with homemade fluff and it’s possible our ratios were off or the cornstarch from the marshmallows we used threw off the results. Overall, the cake was enjoyable. I would consider trying it again.
My cake came out really dry. Maybe I over-baked it, or over-mixed it, but somehow I think it still would have turned out dry. The icing is delicious though- I could eat it plain with a spoon! It’s definitely thinner than a normal buttercream icing, so I put it in the fridge for a bit before I tried to spread it. That seemed to help.
Did anyone else notice or find weird that there is no milk in this recipe?
Are you sure about the 3 sticks of butter in the frosting? Tasted too buttery to us.
Cake was just okay. Frosting was too thin to spread. I double checked ingredients twice. Won’t make again.