Lemon Sheet Cake from The Toasty Kitchen

Lemon Sheet Cake - made March 29, 2026 from The Toasty Kitchen 

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons lemon zest

4 large eggs, room temperature

3 cups (336 grams) cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup whole milk, room temperature

1/4 cup lemon juice

Frosting

8 ounces block-style cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 cups (400 grams) confectioners sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla extract, lemon zest and eggs, one at time, mixing on low speed until combined.
4. In a separate bowl, whish together cake flour, baking powder and salt.
5. In a liquid measuring cup, combine lemon juice and milk.
6. Add half of the dry ingredients to butter mixture, mixing on low speed until just combined. Add half of the milk mixture, mixing until just combined. Add remaining dry ingredients, mixing until just combined then add remaining milk mixture, mixing until combined and smooth.
7. Pour batter in an even layer into prepared baking pan. Bake 30-34 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out with a few moist crumbs.
8. Remove cake from oven and let cool completely in the pan.
9. When cake is cool, make frosting. Beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy, about 1-2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and salt, mixing until combined.
10. Add confectioners' sugar, half cup at a time, mixing on low speed until combined. Switch to high speed and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
11. Spread frosting in an even layer over cooled cake. 

I wanted to like this recipe more than I did. I think it was partly my fault that I didn't make it correctly and partly maybe my expectations were different from the reality of how it turned out. First, as you can tell from the above picture, my frosting was rubbish. Despite the cream cheese being softened, I clearly didn't beat it to smoothness enough as I had little clumps of cream cheese in the frosting. Ugh. 

Second, I think I expected the texture to be softer since this exclusively uses cake flour. But it didn't turn out soft and fluffy like I had expected. I don't know whether I baked it too long, which is usually not an issue with me, or this is just how it was supposed to turn out. It wasn't dry. It also wasn't as lemony as I had hoped. Now that was definitely my fault as I only used the zest of 1 lemon, not 2. That was a deliberate mistake on my part as I got enough juice from 1 lemon and I didn't want to zest a second lemon just for the zest and not have a use for the juice. It sounds lame as I type this but with the price of everything going up these days, I'm more mindful than ever of not using more than I need or wasting an ingredient.

In hindsight, that wasn't the best decision if I wanted something more lemony. Still, the texture wasn't my favorite either so it's not the end of the world that I didn't use an extra lemon. I think my expectation was this would have the moisture and texture of a Texas sheet cake and it didn't. At least not the way I made it.