Hi there,
Am making a double layer lemon cake for daughter's baby shower this Saturday. Gonna make a lemon cake, poke holes, pour lemon simple syrup over top using fresh lemon juice. Want it nice and lemony. Was going to make a yellow-colored (Main Shower color) stabilized whip cream frosting, Now, I'm having second thoughts and wondering if that type of frosting will even be good. I do have a couple of blocks of cream cheese in frig. Have heard some people say that they love Cream Cheese frosting with lemon cake. Just don't know what to do.
The 2 most important points for me is that the freshness and big flavor of the lemon is front and center and the star of the show (Well, aside from my precious new granddaughter, that is - ha!). I am not a cake decorator so this will be my second ever cake that I've decorated. This time I'm wanting to just do big (swirls/flowers) all over cake with no space in between. Pics I've seen seem really pretty. Will it take me a LONG time to do?? Here's a link to the pic of the cake which had the frosting that inspired me. http://iambaker.net/rose-cake-tutorial/
To add yellow to the frosting, I have either Spectrum-brand Soft Gel Paste (Lemon Yellow) in squeeze bottle OR I have Wilton Gel (Golden Yellow).
Please help.
Oh yes, also...apparently the gal that gave the tut for that above cake used a 1M tip. I guess I don't have that one as none of my tips have letters on them. Only numbers. Can anyone tell me what other tip might work? I only have a handful of tips. Welp, guess I might as well post them:
2, 3, 5, 7, 12, 16, 18, 21, 32, 48, 61, 67, 98, 101, 103, 104, 129, 225 and 352.
Thanks so much all!! 
Mindy
You can actually use any tip that will put ridges in the frosting. I've seen some pretty ones done with smaller tips. Just be warned - - it takes a LOT more frosting than usual.
As far as your flavors go - - cream cheese bc would be good if you really want the lemon flavor to shine through. One of my biggest selling flavor combinations was lemon cake with blackberry bc. It's a beautiful color and a good contrast to the lemon.
One of my most popular flavors is my lemon blueberry with lemon cream cheese frosting. Adding fresh lemon juice makes it lemony and delicious!
A lemon swiss meringue buttercream would be a lighter option as well. I'm not a fan of whipped frostings, but as they are usually a lighter option, it is a good choice also!
I actually love vanilla buttercream on lemon cake. My lemon cake is quite lemony and filled with lemon curd and the vanilla buttercream is a perfect sweet counterbalance. I actually prefer American buttercream too, when I usually do SMBC. Something about the tart lemon just goes so perfectly with the sweeter buttercream.
As far as the rosettes on the cake, you will probably want to get a 1M tip, you can pick it up at Michaels or other hobby stores. It's a much larger star tip than any that you have, so if you used a smaller tip you'd have very small rosettes and would need to make a ton of them. It wouldn't really have the same look at all.
I recently made a lemon cake and brushed it with a lemon simple syrup. I didn't want the cake to be too moist. I made a buttercream and added lemon curd and some lemon zest to it. It was delicious and not overpowering at all.
Wow! You guys are awesome! So many ideas. I love that!
I think that I will go to Michaels to get a 1M tip. Thanks for the "tip". ha
So, I asked my daughter which of your suggestions she would like to choose and she chose the cream cheese. Now I just need to find a cream cheese frosting that will work for the rosettes that I am wanting to make. Hoping to find one on this site. If any of you have one that you have time to post, it would be greatly appreciated!
Sorry, no offense intended at all, but we are not huge buttercream fans. I know that I probably shouldn't say so on a forum where so many of you are professional cake makers, but....it's the truth. Perhaps the ones we've had have just been too sweet? Have had it many times over and am still yet to find one that I really like. Sowee. 
Again, thanks so very much. I really love this forum. You are all so great and helpful.
Blessings to you all,
Mindy
I discovered this trick on another recipe site - add a teaspoon of coconut flavoring to your cream cheese frosting - it enhances the lemon flavor, the coconut flavor is subtle enough to not even be noticed.
To get a strong lemon flavor into the cream cheese without watering it down mix lemon curd into it. If you like frostings that are not too sweet you might want to try Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I didn't know what it was until I started hanging out on this site. Now I can't live without it!
Blueberry is good, along with the flavor, it adds that extra color too. You could never go wrong with cream cheese as well.
Great ideas above, and this mostly repeats, but I find that cream cheese frosting is a bit soft and might not pipe those rose swirls very well. I would highly recommend IMBC or SMBC if you are able to do that. Best BC there is, and pipes beautifully IMHO. Add some lemon curd to taste , some lemon oil (start with 1/4 tsp increments as it is strong, but far superior to extract because it is not bitter) and a splash of limoncello for over the top lemon buttercream that pipes beautifully. I LOVE Rose Levy Beranbaum's lemon curd recipe. I cook it an extra 30 minutes at 190 - 195 degrees, stirring constantly ( very boring but I am always amazed what I can get done with my other hand!). This cooks it down so it is very thick and fabulous to add to frosting without thinning it down, and to use between cake layers. (I still always use a dam). It freezes beautifully, so I always make a lot since it is time consuming to make, and keep extra in the freezer. For a very lemony cake if you don't have one and you want scratch, use your favorite white cake recipe that makes 2 nine inch cakes. Ahead of time add 3 TBSPs finely grated lemon zest to the sugar (I even process it with the sugar to get the zest very finely chopped) and shake it up with sugar in a sealed container and let sit with sugar for a few hours or overnight if possible. (Use the lemons for the curd. I leave the zest out of the curd so there are no specks in the frosting. ) Use this lemon sugar as usual in recipe. Add about 1 1/2 tsps lemon oil with the butter/creaming step, more or less to taste. You can use the curd or buttercream as filling. The curd will make it really lemony, and frost with the buttercream, or alternate curd and buttercream fillings if your cake will be 3 or 4 layers. It is so pretty to cut into. The curd makes the frosting a pale lemon color naturally, but you could of course add a little yellow to it if desired. HTH! PM me if you need any recipes
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