Soft, fluffy squares of vanilla butter cake, flavored with lemon, packed with berries, and slathered with sweet-tart lemon icing. This is a cake for picnics and cookouts, for camping trips and after-school snacking.
Mostly, this is a cake for whenever the craving for cake and icing strikes. It's the kind of cake you leave out on the counter so that anyone and everyone can grab a square any time they like.
Sprinkles recommended. Plate and fork not required.

I love the whole idea of Snack Cake.
Are there rules about what can and can't be considered a "snack cake"? I don't know and I don't care.
As far as I'm concerned, the only criteria are that it's the kind of cake you want to snack on.
As in, "I'm not eating dessert before lunch. I just need a little snack." Or, "I just need a little snack before I can face that report/ email/ homework assignment/ household chore/ family member/ et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."
Cakes can be grand affairs, of course. A multi-layered cake is a labor of love and a beautiful way to celebrate special occasions.
But, snack cake suggests something you can pick up with your fingers and eat while standing over the kitchen sink in the middle of the afternoon. It's the kind of cake that should bake up quickly and pick you up even on the dreariest of days.
Snack cake is the type of thing you can add to a lunch box or serve as an after-school treat. It's an unpretentious bake-sale-worthy casual affair, plate and fork not required.
And, whenever possible, there should be sprinkles.
Jump to:
- Adapt This Cake to What You Have and What You Like
- How to Make a Light and Fluffy Cake
- Sugar Does More for This Cake Make It Sweet
- How To Keep Berries From Sinking to the Bottom of the Cake
- Why Does This Cake Include Butter AND Vegetable Shortening?
- Snack Cake is Delicious With or Without Icing
- More Simple Cake Recipes
- 📖 Recipe
- 💬 Comments
Adapt This Cake to What You Have and What You Like
This recipe is quick and easy, as all snacking cakes should be, and easily adaptable to what you have on hand and what you like.
- Make it with fresh or frozen berries - any kind and combination
- Make it with no berries at all)
- Make it with or without the tart lemon icing
- Top the cake with Vanilla Icing instead of lemon or a thick layer of raspberry cream cheese buttercream
- Add some almond extract instead of the lemon zest
- Or replace the lemon zest with orange, lime, or grapefruit zest
I generally have some frozen berries in my freezer and lemons in my fruit drawer, so the lemon and berry flavors were an easy decision. But, fresh berries work just as well as frozen. Or, you can leave the berries out completely.
This is a snack cake. It's nothing to be too serious about. Do as you like.
How to Make a Light and Fluffy Cake
This recipe calls for separating the eggs (here's how to separate eggs) so that you can beat the egg whites separately and fold them into the batter right before baking.
Why? Because this simple technique is one of the best ways to bake a cake that's super soft and fluffy.
When you beat egg whites, you are actually creating a situation in which pockets of air are trapped within the strands of protein in the whites. The more you beat, the more bubbles of air you create, increasing the volume of the egg whites and changing their consistency.
There are three stages to beating egg whites: soft peak, medium peak, and stiff peak. This simply means that, if you lift the beater from the egg whites, they will either:
- form a soft peak that collapses over onto itself
- form a medium peak (sometimes called a firm peak) that mostly holds its shape, except for the tip, which will fold over onto itself
- form a stiff peak, that will hold its shape from the base to the tip
When you fold beaten egg whites into cake batter, you are essentially incorporating all those pockets of air into the batter, creating a texture that is light and fluffy.
However.... this gets tricky if the cake batter is thick because as you fold in the egg whites, you're also smashing out a lot of the air you just beat into them.
Sugar Does More for This Cake Make It Sweet
Beating a bit of sugar into the egg whites stabilizes their structure so all that air is more likely to stay trapped inside. Another huge bonus to beating in some sugar is that it will guard against overbeating.
Egg whites can go from "medium peak" to over-beaten, dry, and lumpy in a flash. A bit of sugar keeps this from happening.
It does matter WHEN you add the sugar.
#1. Beat the egg whites until they are frothy, with large air bubbles throughout
#2. While you continue to beat, slowly sprinkle in the sugar
#3. Keep beating until the egg whites are glossy and at the firm peak stage - they'll hold their shape, but the tip falls over onto itself when you lift the beater.
One final thing I want to say about beating egg whites.... One year for Christmas, my daughter got me this combination Immersion Hand Blender, Mixer, and Food Processor and it's fabulous.
It is absolutely perfect for quickly beating a few egg whites and allows me to leave the cake batter in the bowl of my stand mixer while beating up the egg whites in a separate bowl.
How To Keep Berries From Sinking to the Bottom of the Cake
Anyone who's ever baked with fresh berries has probably had the experience of all the fruit sinking to the bottom while the cake bakes. Different recipes suggest different tips and tricks for preventing this from happening. Some work and some don't.
For this cake, the thing that works the best is to toss the fruit with a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch. The cornstarch seems to give the berries something to adhere to, sticking them to the batter so they are less likely to sink while the cake bakes.
Mind you - some of the berries will sink to the bottom no matter what you do. This is fine. Don't stress about it.
You'll have some berries on the bottom of each slice, but you'll also have some in the middle and even at the top.
Why Does This Cake Include Butter AND Vegetable Shortening?
First off, let me say that if you'd like to use all butter or all vegetable shortening, go for it.
The main difference between the two (when it comes to baking) is that butter contains some water and vegetable shortening does not.
Because vegetable shortening is 100% fat, it adds more tenderness to cakes than butter does. Cakes made with shortening tend to be softer and lighter tasting than those made with butter. BUT (and this is a BIG but) - shortening has zero flavor.
Butter brings the flavor. Using half shortening and half butter creates a cake that takes advantage of the best parts of each - a fluffy, light crumb from the shortening and rich, buttery flavor from the butter. Win. Win.
Snack Cake is Delicious With or Without Icing
I love me a slice of cake with tart lemon icing. But, this cake is also delicious, and sometimes more convenient, without it. If, for example, you wanted to pack squares of cake into lunch boxes, I'd leave them un-iced.
Plain squares of cake are also more convenient on the go. And, I do love situations in which one has the option of heading out the door all in a rush to someplace or another with a piece of cake on a napkin to eat on the way. Who doesn't?
If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Scroll down to rate this recipe and leave a comment for me, or take a picture and tag it @ofbatteranddough on Instagram.
Happy baking!
📖 Recipe
Berry Lemon Snack Cake
Soft, fluffy squares of vanilla butter cake, flavored with lemon, packed with berries, and slathered with sweet-tart lemon icing. This is a cake for picnics and cookouts, for camping trips and after school snacking. Mostly, this is a cake for whenever the craving for cake and icing strikes. It's the kind of cake you leave out on the counter so that anyone and everyone can grab a square any time they like.
It's quick and easy to make, as all snacking cakes should be, easily adaptable to what you have on hand and what you like. Make it with fresh or frozen berries (or no berries at all), and with or without the tart lemon icing (or sub vanilla or almond extract for the lemon).
If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Scroll down to rate this recipe and leave a comment for me!
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 2 ½ cups (300g) all-purpose flour
- 3 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoon table salt (Or 2 teaspoon kosher salt)
- 12 ounces berries fresh or frozen (*See note)
- 2 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 ⅔ cups (335g) granulated sugar, divided
- ⅓ cup (64g) vegetable shortening
- ⅓ cup (5 ⅓ tbsp; 75g ) salted butter, at room temperature
- 2 tablespoon lemon zest (From 1-2 lemons, depending on their size. Juice the lemons for the icing.)
- 3 cups (375) powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
- 2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon table salt (¼ teaspoon kosher salt)
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 3 large egg whites, at room temperature (How to quickly bring eggs to room temperature)
- 1 ¼ cup (295ml) whole or 2% milk (how to quickly bring milk to room temperature)
For the lemon icing:
- 6 tablespoon (85g) salted butter, at room temperature
- 6-7 tablespoon (88-103ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
Instructions
Make the cake:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (176 degrees C). Use either vegetable shortening or butter to grease and flour a 9x13-inch rectangle baking dish. (How to grease and flour pans.)
- Add the flour, baking powder, and salt to a bowl and stir with a wire whisk to combine.
- Add the berries to a separate bowl and toss with the cornstarch. Set aside.
- Beat 1 ⅓ cup of the granulated sugar, the shortening, and butter with an electric mixer on medium high speed until very light and fluffy, about 6 minutes. Stop the mixer every once in a while to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Separate the two whole eggs (here's how to separate eggs), adding the egg yolks to the butter and shortening mixture and the whites to a separate bowl.
- Beat the egg yolks into the butter shortening mixture until well blended, about 1 minute. Add the zest, lemon extract, and vanilla extract and beat for another 30 seconds to mix.
- Add the flour mixture and milk to the batter in alternating additions, beginning and ending with the flour (⅓ of the flour, ½ of the milk, ⅓ of the flour, ½ of the milk, ⅓ of the flour). After each addition, beat the batter on low speed just until barely incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl before each new addition.
- Add the 3 remaining egg whites to the other 2 egg whites and beat with an electric mixer until doubled in volume and frothy. With the mixer running, slowly sprinkle in the remaining ⅓ cup of sugar. Beat until medium peaks form; if you lift the beater from the egg whites, the peak that forms will hold its shape, but fold over on itself slightly. (See images and video above for more information.)
- Gently stir the berries into the batter, mixing just long enough to distribute them. Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter as gently as you can, mixing just until distributed throughout the batter. Do not over mix. You should still be able to see a few streaks of egg white in the batter.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it into an even layer. Bake for 60-65 minutes, until the sides of the cake are pulling away from the side of the pan, the cake does not jiggle at all if you move the pan, and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out without any evidence of raw batter. (*See note below for what to do if the top of the cake is getting too brown.)
- Remove the cake to a wire rack and allow to cool completely in the pan before icing.
Make the lemon icing:
- Add all the icing ingredients to a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until completely smooth, about 3-4 minutes. Adjust the amount of lemon juice and powdered sugar as necessary to achieve a spreadable consistency. Icing should be the consistency of yogurt.
- Spread the icing over the cake and allow it to set before cutting into squares, about 2 hours at room temperature or 1 hour in the refrigerator.
- Top with sprinkles if desired, cut into squares and serve. Cake will keep covered at room temperature for up to 2 days.
Notes
What kind of berries should you use in this snack cake?
I really love using raspberries in this cake but blueberries and blackberries will also work well. You can also use a combination of berries. If you use strawberries, cut them into pieces that are about the size of a blueberry or raspberry.
What to do if the top of your cake is getting too brown:
Because it takes about an hour to bake this cake, the top can get overly brown before the center is baked through. It's ok if the top of the cake is golden brown, but if the top of your cake starts to look too dark, simply cover it loosely with a sheet of aluminum foil.
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Pastel sprinkles | Cake sprinkles
-
McCormick Pure Lemon Extract, 2 fl oz
-
Rodelle Gourmet Pure Vanilla Extract, 8 Oz
-
LE REGALO Rectangular Stoneware Baking Dish
-
Le Creuset Silicone Craft Series Utensil Set with Stoneware Crock, 5 pc.
-
Immersion Blender 4-in-1, Stainless Steel Whisk and Food Chopper
-
KitchenAid 6-Quart Pro Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1 squareAmount Per Serving: Calories: 510Total Fat: 18gSaturated Fat: 10gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 65mgSodium: 535mgCarbohydrates: 82gFiber: 2gSugar: 58gProtein: 6g
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vidhi dalmia says
Hey there I love your recipes
What can I use as a substitute for vegetable shortening
Rebecca Blackwell says
Hi there! You can use butter instead of shortening. Butter and shortening can be used interchangeably in the same amounts. The only change you'll want to make is to ensure that the butter is at room temperature - cold butter is really difficult to blend with other ingredients. Please let me know if you have any other questions!
Allyssa says
So easy to make! It's also taste really good and it's my fam's new favorite! Thanks a lot for sharing your awesome recipe!
Rebecca Blackwell says
I'm so happy to hear that you and your family like this recipe Allyssa! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment for me! I truly appreciate it. xo
Lori | The Kitchen Whisperer says
Oh what a light, fluffy and delicious cake! This just screams summer in the most scrumptious way! I am so loving that lemon icing too! I'm doubling this for our weekend gathering as this will be devoured in seconds by everyone as this cake is truly amazing!
Rebecca Blackwell says
I'm so happy to hear that you like this recipe Lori! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment for me. I truly appreciate it! Have a great weekend! xo
Valerie says
A wonderful light, soft, and moist vanilla cake with the lemon icing and absolutely loved it! The tart sweet icing has a delicious lemon flavour that goes so nice with the light cake. I made the cake with a mix of blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Turned out fantastic!
Rebecca Blackwell says
Hi Valerie! I am so happy to hear that you liked this cake! The lemon icing is my favorite part... but, I'm always a sucker for lemon anything. 🙂 Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment for me! I truly appreciate it! xo