ULTIMATE Summer Lemonade Cake! _ How To Cake It with Yolanda Gampp
### How to Make a Lemonade Stand Cake: A Step-by-Step Guide
#### Introduction
It’s really hot in Toronto this weekend, and all I’ve been thinking about is having a nice cold glass of lemonade. So, I decided to make a lemonade stand cake! This cake is decorated with some gorgeous sugar cookies made by Megan. If you’re a fan of lemons, you’ll love this recipe. I’ve already made two other lemon cakes on this channel: the pink lemonade visual cake and the lemon meringue mega cake. But now, I wanted to try something new—lemon shortbread bars to put inside this cake.
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#### Making Lemon Shortbread Bars
The lemon shortbread bars are really easy to make but require some preparation time since you need to let them set before cutting. The shortbread crust is simple—it consists of butter, flour, icing sugar, and a pinch of salt. You can mix the ingredients by hand, with a mixer, or using a food processor.
1. **Prepare the Crust**: Press the dough into the bottom of a rectangular pan.
2. **Bake the Crust**: Bake the crust on its own, which is affectionately called “lined bacon” in some circles (it could be a movie series!).
3. **Make the Lemon Filling**: While the crust is baking, prepare the lemon filling made with freshly squeezed lemon juice, freshly grated lemon zest, sugar, eggs, and a bit of flour.
4. **Assemble the Bars**: Pour the filling on top of the crust and bake again. Once done, let it cool completely and chill in the fridge to set.
If you don’t want to make the entire cake, at least make the lemon shortbread bars—they’re so good and easy!
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#### Baking the Cake
For the cake part, I baked two rectangular pans of vanilla cake. One pan was dyed pink because I love the combination of pink and yellow—it reminds me of pink lemonade. After baking, I cooled and chilled the cakes.
1. **Level and Prepare**: Level each cake and remove any caramelization from the bottom.
2. **Layering**: Use a ruler to cut the cake into strips lengthwise. The first strip needs to be twice as wide as the second strip. This creates three layers when combined.
3. **Soak in Syrup**: Shower all the layers with simple syrup, adding more lemons for extra flavor.
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#### Assembling the Cake
I removed the lemon shortbread bars from the pan carefully and cut them to fit inside the cake. I trimmed any excess and ensured the thick strip was the same size as the cake layers. While doing this, I wondered about the practicality of a lemonade stand business—like whether kids could afford the necessary shields or sanitization machines.
1. **Flavoring Buttercream**: I flavored some Italian meringue buttercream with lemon curd to give it a slight yellow tint.
2. **Stacking Layers**: I stacked the cake layers, alternating pink and vanilla, adding lemon buttercream in between. The placement of the lemon shortbread bar was strategic—higher up to avoid squashing it under the weight of the cake.
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#### Crumb Coating and Icing
After stacking, I put the cake back in the fridge to chill before applying a crumb coat with leftover lemon buttercream. Once chilled, I iced the cake using plain Italian meringue buttercream and a bench scraper to ensure a smooth finish.
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#### Decorating with Fondant
To decorate the cake, I rolled out three slabs of white fondant and one slab of pink for the top. The goal was to cover the sides in panels (a technique I refer to as “paneling”).
1. **Measuring**: Measure the height and width of the cake before rolling out the fondant.
2. **Applying Panels**: Cut each panel to fit the exact measurements, ensuring they match the cake’s dimensions. The process was flawless—unlike most cakes, all four sides were completely equal (a groundbreaking achievement!).
3. **Adding Stripes**: I cut thin pink strips from a sheet of fondant and attached them to the cake using water. This created a stripe pattern around the top.
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#### Adding Sugar Cookies
Megan’s sugar cookies added the finishing touch to my lemonade stand theme. These gorgeous cookies included:
- A sign on the front of the cake.
- Lemon clusters along the sides.
- Pitchers, bowls of lemons, and glasses on top.
- Mini squares stacked with icing sugar for a unique look.
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#### Conclusion
This lemonade stand cake is more than just dessert—it’s an artistic creation. With pink stripes inside (a delightful “pinkception” moment!), beautiful fondant panels, and Megan’s stunning sugar cookies, this cake is truly one-of-a-kind.
If you’re inspired to try making your own lemonade stand cake or want to learn how to make Megan’s sugar cookies, check out our upcoming Bake You Happy tutorials. There’s something for everyone—cupcakes, tie-dye cakes, and more!
Finally, as I cut into the cake, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in my creation. It was everything I imagined—a delicious blend of lemons, layers, and creativity.
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