I love grapefruit, so when I came across a recipe for a grapefruit infused cake with an accompanying grapefruit butter-cream frosting, it was natural to drool and then immediately place it on the top of my “photo shoot to do list”. The recipe came from this blog. This was a surprisingly easy cake to make, although I swore I had done something wrong because my cake batter was almost like pizza dough. I was terrified that making this cake would be a repeat of those lavender cupcakes. But, I put the cake in the oven and just tried to have faith in my baking skills. Turns out the cake was just fine! It is an incredibly dense cake, which wasn’t necessarily bad, but I think in the future I will probably try to modify a simple white cake recipe and infuse the grapefruit flavor. I prefer my cakes light and fluffy versus dense. However, the frosting was FANTASTIC. I am definitely going to write it down on an official recipe card to put in my recipe box. I only do that if I know I love a recipe and will want to keep it forever! Enjoy the images and try out the recipe if you’d like! It will be at the bottom of this post!
Grapefruit Cake
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Zest of 1 grapefruit
2 large eggs
1 cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt
1/3 cup light olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (about 1 grapefruit)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Grease 2 8-inch cake pans.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together sugar and grapefruit zest with your fingers until fragrant. Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Mix in yogurt, olive oil, vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoon grapefruit juice (reserve 1/3 cup for later). Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt.
Divide batter evenly between cake pans and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Using a pastry brush, brush remaining 1/3 cup grapefruit juice on top on the cake layers, allowing the juice to soak into the cake. Allow to cool to room temperature.
Grapefruit Buttercream
3/4 cup freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, room temperature
Zest of 1 grapefruit
4 cups powdered sugar
Heavy cream
In a small saucepan, bring grapefruit juice to a boil and simmer until it reduces and thickens to about 1/4 cup. Cool to room temperature.
In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and grapefruit zest until smooth. Mix in thickened grapefruit juice. Gradually add powdered sugar until incorporated and smooth. Because the thickened grapefruit juice will vary in amount, add heavy cream one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved.
Charlene Champion Photography 
Your grapefruit cake looks stunning. Grapefruits always remind me of sunshine. Your lovely cake, teamed with that those glorious daffodils, looks like the perfect cake for a sunny spring day. If your not happy with the texture of the cake, perhaps you could try making it using an easy all in one sponge recipe and then thin the cake mixture to a dropping consistancy with some grapefruit juice and include some grapefruit zest to give a flavoursome light sponge.
not a fan of grapefruit but this looks GORGEOUS CHAR!!
Thanks for the wonderful comments Gnome! I definitely will give your suggestions a try when I attempt this again! The frosting was so delicious, but the cake needs some adjusting! Thanks for your input!