Almond Flour Lemon Raspberry Cake with Crumb Topping

This Almond Flour Lemon Raspberry Cake is bursting with sweet, juicy raspberries and tart lemon flavor. It also has the best gluten-free crumb topping that stays crunchy even underneath a powdered sugar glaze! This cake is so soft and tender, you’d never say it was made with almond flour. The key to this texture is the addition of cornstarch, which adds a tenderness and fluffy crumb that doesn’t always happen with just almond flour alone. This crumb cake is made in an 8-inch springform pan, so it’s an easy single layer cake and it stores well at room temperature or in the fridge, and freezes well too.

This is an older recipe from August 2019 that was in desperate need of an update. I’ve made substantial changes to the recipe to apply what I’ve learned from baking with almond flour over the last 7 years. I promise, the new version will not disappoint you. But, if you’d like a copy of the older version, feel free to reach out and I can email it to you.

This new and improved version is based on my almond flour blueberry lemon bread, which also combines almond flour with cornstarch to provide a tender cake texture that I’m so in love with!

Ingredients and my recommended substitutions

Below are a few notes on the ingredients used in this recipe and my suggestions for substitutions. Scroll to the recipe card at the end for the full list of ingredients.

• Almond flour – You’ll need almond flour for both the cake batter and crumb topping. I normally use fine blanched almond flour instead of almond meal, which has a coarser texture since it’s made from almonds with the skins left on. While some recipes use flour and meal interchangeably, I use fine blanched almond flour as I find it produces a more tender crumb.
• Cornstarch – You’ll also need cornstarch in both the cake and crumb topping. As mentioned above, cornstarch works with the almond flour to enhance the tenderness of the cake. It also helps absorb some moisture from the juicy raspberries. I don’t recommend substituting with tapioca starch (which you can sometimes do) as you’ll need more of it to produce the same results and I think it creates a mealy texture in cakes.
• Raspberries – The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of fresh raspberries. Look for raspberries that are uniform in color and firm to touch. If they’re too soft, they’re probably not fresh and will start to break apart when folded into the cake batter. I haven’t tested this cake with frozen raspberries so I’m not sure how much additional moisture frozen berries would add to the batter.
• Lemon – For extra tart flavor, this cake calls for 2 tablespoons each of lemon juice and zest. While you can easily get 2 tablespoons of juice from one lemon, you’ll need a second lemon in order to get 2 tablespoons of zest.
• Milk – To add a little extra moisture to the cake, I used 2 1/2 tablespoons of milk. Dairy or plant-based milk works.
• Oil – I used olive oil, but avocado oil or vegetable oil can be used instead.
• Butter – Melted unsalted butter is needed for the crumb topping. For a dairy-free cake, you can use plant-based butter.

How to make this lemon raspberry cake with almond flour

There are a few steps to making this cake, but I promise, it’s actually quite easy to make!

A note on measuring ingredients

For convenience, US cup measurements are included in the recipe card for this recipe. To ensure greater accuracy, however, weight and volume measurements are also provided. So, if you see grams (g), you’ll want to use a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients, and if you see milliliters (ml), you’ll want to use a liquid measuring cup. Smaller quantities of ingredients are provided in teaspoons and tablespoons.

My best tips for making this cake

• Electric mixer. To aerate the eggs and create a fluffy cake, I used an electric mixer as it’s a quick method to do this. You can also use a whisk, it will just take a little longer.
• Don’t overmix. When beating together the eggs and sugar, you just want the mixture to get foamy to aerate the eggs a little. This will just take 30-60 seconds. If you keep mixing, the mixture will thicken and start increasing in size. This will add too much liquid to the cake and make the batter runny, which could cause the cake to sink in the middle.
• Use a light colored pan and line with parchment. To prevent the cake from overbrowning use a light colored springform pan (if you can) and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper. (I used a dark pan as that was all I had. The overbrowning wasn’t too bad, but that was because I lined the pan with parchment paper).
• Chill the crumb topping. Since the topping uses melted butter, chilling it is essential in order to get a crunchy crumb topping. If the topping is warm, it will just melt on top of the cake.
• Toss raspberries with cornstarch. This helps prevent the raspberries from sinking to the bottom of the cake. Just reserve a tablespoon from the amount of cornstarch that goes into the batter.

Storage and freezing

Lemon raspberry cake FAQs

More almond flour cake recipes

• Almond Flour Coconut Lime Cake with Coconut Whipped Cream
• Almond Flour Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Buttercream
• Almond Flour Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
• Almond Flour Orange Cake with Citrusy Whipped Cream

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If you make this recipe, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below!