Join Ana and me as we walk you through making this beautiful and refreshing Pink Lemonade cake! In May, our month of lemony goodness, I knew that I wanted to attempt a pink lemonade cake. I’d seen recipes for them before, but they all required frozen pink lemonade concentrate. If you’ve been following us the last couple of months, you know how I feel about that! Not good. That’s how I feel about that, not good! I just knew that there had to be a way to get that tart lemony flavor that is perfect offset by another, as yet unidentified, fresh fruit. I also knew that that I would have to figure it out. Challenge Accepted!
I began my research into pink lemonade with my dear friend Google Search. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. She’s actually kind of my best friend, but we don’t talk about that out loud. Anyway, I simply started looking for homemade pink lemonade recipes and my pal returned more results than you could shake a stick at! Seriously, I tried shaking a stick – not a dent.
There are two schools of thought on pink lemonade, and these are either the addition of fresh strawberry or the addition of fresh raspberry. I read a little further, browsed a few more articles and recipes and decided that the raspberry seemed to be the most authentic.
A plan was born! A plan was tested, and a plan failed. Brainstorming continued… more tests were run, and a winner emerged! To describe how proud of myself I was would be impossible. This was one of my first attempts ever at making modifications to a recipe and delivering something completely different.

Isn’t she gorgeous?
This definitely won’t be the last! I’m in love with this cake and am eager to keep pushing my own boundaries and if the experiments work out, you can bet I’ll be sharing them here – If you want to see experiments that don’t work out, well, those are on our Facebook LIVE broadcasts! You could try the nut butter episode as a great example of me modifying a recipe to a spectacular failure! But I digress – you’re here for a Beautiful and Refreshing Pink Lemonade Cake, and a pink lemonade cake you shall have!
As a bonus, we’re also posting the video on how to make the oh-so-pretty tri-color rosettes that cover the cake.
To get started, there are a few things you’ll need:
- Some Raspberry Simple Syrup, the recipe was posted last week.
- Raspberry Emulsion (for the frosting)
- 1M Piping Tip (or, if you prefer, you could use a 1B)
- Gel Food Color (a great brand for home bakers is Americolor and they have a great starter kit)
Making the Pink Lemonade Cake
Frosting the Cake

Prep Time | 30 minutes |
Cook Time | 40 minutes |
Servings |
ounces
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- 375 grams Cake Flour
- 375 grams Granulated Sugar
- 1 tbsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Salt
- 6 large Egg Whites Room Temp
- 1/2 cup Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice
- 1/2 cup Raspberry Simple Syrup
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup Butter Room Temp
- 2 tbsp Vegetable Oil
- 3 drops Pink Food Color Use Gel Color
Ingredients
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- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare your 8" cake pans.
- Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl of your stand mixer (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt).
- Add the softened butter.
- Turn the mixer (with the paddle attachment) on to stir speed.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients (egg whites, lemon juice, raspberry simple syrup, vanilla extract, vegetable oil, and pink food color.
- Add 1/3 of the mixture to the dry ingredients.
- Turn the mixer on stir, easing up to 4 (on a KitchenAid) and beat for about 30 seconds on 4. (scrape the bowl when finished)
- Add half of the remaining liquid ingredients and whip on 4 for another 30 seconds. (scrape the bowl when finished)
- Add the remaining liquid ingredients and beat on 4 for another 30 seconds. Once the mixture has come together and is starting to look like you'd expect cake batter to look, stop and scrape the sides of the bowl and the paddle attachment.
- Mix at speed 8 for about 15-20 seconds.
- Divide batter evenly between your prepared pans.
- Turn the temperature of the oven down to 325 degrees F and quickly put the batter filled pans in.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes. Make sure you test this cake with a toothpick to make sure it's done in the middle! If the cake needs more than 45 minutes to cook completely, check it every 2 minutes until it's done.
- This recipe makes great cupcakes! Fill wrappers 3/4 full (or use a cupcake scoop) and bake at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes.
- The recipe I modified for this cake is a Pink Champagne cake by Phantastic Jess.
- For the buttercream, I used our Light and Fluffy Swiss Merengue Buttercream recipe and added 1/4 teaspoon of Raspberry Emulsion.