The softest, lemon-packed cake on the face of the earth. If you are a lemon lover, this Super Lemon Bundt Cake will be your new favorite!
*This post was originally written and published on August 28, 2014 (my first year of blogging!). It is now one of the most popular recipes on my blog! I left the post as-is and updated with new photos.*
Oh you guys, this super lemon bundt cake is SO good. I have seriously become addicted to lemon desserts. I'm not sure where it came from?! There's something about the tart and sweet combination that is just so amazing. This cake is no exception. The texture of this cake is is sort of dense - think: pound cake - but it is so ridiculously soft, moist and packed with lemony flavor. The lemon glaze on top really brings this dessert over the top and really packs a big punch of lemony flavor. The cake is delicious on it's own but the glaze is totally and completely necessary! The lemon sugar sprinkled on top makes it look even prettier while adding to the lemon flavor. This cake is for true lemon lovers!
The cake is so simple to put together and uses such common ingredients. I love making bundt cakes because they're so pretty with such minimal effort! Be sure to grease your pan extreeemely well so the cake slips right out. If a few spots get stuck on, don't even worry about it because you can cover it with the glaze.
On top there's lemon sugar sprinkled on. I've never made lemon sugar until this recipe and it's so yummy! Leaving the lemon zest in with the sugar is totally optional, but sometimes I push the sugar through a fine mesh strainer to separate the two, depending who I am serving. It's all about personal preference.
Recipe Tips:
- How to zest a lemon: Over a clean surface or cutting board, hold the grater in one hand and the lemon in the other. A microplane grater works best but you can also use a box grater - just be sure to use the smallest holes so you get the lemon zest very fine. Push the lemon down the grater in one direction, removing only the the yellow outer part of the fruit, being careful to avoid the bitter pith.
- Bundt pan size: You can use any 12-cup bundt pan.
- Grease the pan: You want to be extremely generous with greasing a bundt pan - they are notorious for sticking!
If you love lemon, you absolutely need to make this.. like now.
More bundt cake recipes you'll love:
- Lemon Raspberry Coconut Cake
- Banana Bundt Cake With Maple Brown Sugar Glaze
- Cinnamon Roll Bundt Cake
- Guinness Chocolate Stout Cake
- Coconut Pound Cake
- Carrot Pound Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze
Super Lemon Bundt Cake
Ingredients
Lemon Cake
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ¼ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbs lemon zest
- 2 tbs + 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 ¼ cups whole milk
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter cubed
Lemon Glaze
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 3-5 tbs lemon juice
Lemon Sugar Topping
- 1 tbs lemon zest
- 1 tbs granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan very well, making sure to really get into all crevices. Then, lightly flour the pan. Set aside.
- Lightly whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside. In the bowl of your stand mixer (if you're using one) fitted with the paddle attachment, beat eggs on low until they are thickened and very pale yellow in color. Turn mixer on low and slowly add sugar to running mixer and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla, lemon juice and lemon zest. Slowly pour in dry ingredients on low speed until combined.
- In a small saucepan, heat milk until very hot and butter is just melted. Do not boil and whisk the mixture to help the butter along. Pour into batter and mix until smooth. Batter will be very thin. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for 27-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs.
- Once done, remove cake from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes in pan. Release the sides of the cake with a butter knife to ensure it isn’t going to stick. Turn cake onto a large round platter or cake stand. (If using a 9x13 pan, do not remove cake, just place entire pan onto wire rack so underneath the pan can cool also.) Allow cake to finish cooling until warm to the touch.
- While cake is cooling, prepare lemon sugar and glaze. For the lemon sugar, thoroughly mix the lemon zest and sugar together and let it sit for 5 minutes. If you don’t want the lemon zest on top of the cake, push the sugar through a fine mesh strainer, separating the two and discard the zest. If you don’t mind the zest on top of your cake (it will give it a nice pop of color!), then just set the mixture aside.
- For the glaze, whisk powdered sugar and lemon juice, using more or less lemon juice as needed to get desired consistency. (I like to keep mine slightly thick so it won’t thin out too much when I serve it over warm cake.)Once cake is cooled down slightly, drizzle glaze over warm cake. Alternately, you can drizzle the glaze over each individual piece being served. Sprinkle lemon sugar on top.
- Cake will stay soft and moist for 3 days stored in an airtight container.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Wrap baked and cooled cake (without glaze) in a few layers of plastic wrap and then wrap in a layer of aluminum foil. You can freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in refrigerator. Glaze once thawed.
Adapted from Amy Kay's Kitchen originally adapted from Taste of Home.
Have you made this recipe? I'd love to know how it came out for you! Please leave a comment below and share a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #sprinklesomesugar so I can see it!
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I wasn't sure about the 27-35 minutes because I have never baked a bundt cake in less than 50 minutes to 1 hour, but surprisingly this cake came out perfect after allowing it to bake for 35 minutes and sit for 5 minutes. I didn't really taste the lemon , but it is a very moist cake.
Yuuuuummmmmmyyyyy! I just made this cake exactly per your recipe. Amazing dense texture that's moist but not gummy. Unfortunately I've never used a bundt pan before, and despite applying a thorough coat of cooking spray to the pan, the cake wouldn't come out. I was going to bring the cake to an event at a friend's house tomorrow, but it was too funny looking after I pried it out. It's not pretty enough to share with my friends, but it's certainly tasty enough for my husband and me! Seriously one of the best cakes I've ever made/had. I will definitely make this again, and learn to master the Bundt pan!
Made this tonight for the first time. It turned out so dense and thick. I’m not sure where I messed it up. It had great flavor though.
I made this cake for my supper group. It made 2–9 inch rounds and an 8 inch round. They are beautiful! I love how the zest and the sugar look sprinkled on the cake. Can’t wait to try them.
Lemon is a family favorite and I couldn’t wait to make this wonderful looking cake! The flavor was perfect (I used Myer lemons), however, I was so disappointed when I cut into it! It was so dense! I followed the recipe exactly and don’t know what went wrong!
Hello, I just made this cake in a bundt pan, and it fluffed divinely, then it completely sank in the middle!!! Really do not know what I did wrong... any help
I was wondering if it would be possible to use 2% milk instead of whole milk?
Absolutely.
Made this Saturday. Very tasty...it really puffed up and then deflated...don't know why that happened. However, it looked good and tasted good, so I guess there was no harm. Not a baker as such, but have never made a cake where you warm the milk/butter before adding to ingredients. Can you tell me why this is done?
Made with orange juice and orange zest. Will make again! Thanks for the recipe.
Sounds like it wasn't fully baked in the middle!
Hello,
I have made this recipe and it is delicious! My question is why do we heat the milk and butter? Most recipes I found cream the butter with the sugar and use non-heated milk.
Thanks for teaching and giving us your tricks!
You're so very welcome, Jennifer!
What is your altitude? Mine is almost 6000’. Makes cakes difficult.
Well, this will be the first for me melting the butter in the hot milk. I just can't imagine how this all works out because the cakes texture in the picture looks just like you could have beaten the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. I am not the scientific minded, so this one... I'm going to definitely try this weekend. I really like all the lemon infusion -- the ample lemon zest along with the 5 tsp+ of fresh lemon juice. This should pack a very lingering result!
This is my favorite lemon cake! I usually skip the lemon sugar topping, but it's still so good. I'm currently pregnant and been craving it all week. We finally got lemons and it's in the oven now! I can't wait!
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Hi. I see that you don't update your website too often. I
know that writing content is time consuming and boring.
But did you know that there is a tool that allows you to create new articles using existing
content (from article directories or other websites from your niche)?
And it does it very well. The new articles are unique and pass the copyscape test.
You should try miftolo's tools
I have made this cake recently and it was a huge hit! My mother-in-law wants me to make it for a special event that has a pink theme, do you have any suggestions on how I can make the glaze pink? Would you just use food coloring? I saw in the comments a recommendation to try it with grapefruit zest in the sugar topping so that's another option to add pink to it.
Also, for another time I want to make this could I include blueberries? Would you suggest putting the blueberries in the batter right before you bake it?
Thanks!
My mother-in-law had an outpatient procedure done so I wanted to make her and my father-in-law a few of her favorites for a good dinner. She loves my lasagna so that was an easy decision but dessert was more difficult. She LOVES citrus desserts so I tried this and am SO glad I did! They loved it, and I asked my husband to bring me a slice back after delivering so I could try it, too. ; ) I agree with them! I didn't have enough lemon rind for the sugar and was short a bit for the cake but it was still very lemony and delicious! Thank you for sharing this. It has been printed and filed!!!
Sorry, I tried this recipe but didn't work. It was almost totally underbaked in the center, and I baked it for an extra 5 minutes. I'm sure I did something wrong; I only have a hand mixer, not a stand one. But seems there's some extra steps - heating the milk? - whereas other bundt cake recipes are simpler.
Should this be stored in the refrigerator?
Nope!
I made this for our weekend girls trip and it was a HUGE HIT!! I did end up having to cook it an extra 12 minutes. I added some rosemary to the batter, because I love rosemary & lemon together! Next time, I'll add more lemon zest as it wasn't super lemony, but freakin' MOIST! The girls LOVED IT!!! Thanks for the keeper!!
I made this cake today & it is soooo good!. I poured the batter into 3 ea 6inch mini bundt pans. They are so cute! I had to bake them for 40 minutes. I kept checking my oven every 5 minutes after 25 minutes. When I buy a bag of lemons, I juice the lemons and put them in ice cube trays...then bag them once they are frozen so this way I always have my lemon juice ready. I also jest the lemons & freeze them in little packets of 1 teaspoon each so I have that ready too. I'm keeping one mini bundt cake & sharing the other two w/neighbors. Thanks for the great recipe.
I made this cake for a going away party at work. We made a potluck of the guest of honors’s favorite foods. She wanted a lemon cake so I made this. It went over great! Got rave reviews from my coworkers. Now my daughter wants me to make her one for her birthday!
That's wonderful! Glad to hear it. 🙂
Delicious! I used gluten free flour and let the batter rest in the pan 10 minutes before baking. The lemon sugar makes it!
Agreed! The lemon sugar really makes it pop.
Hi,
Do you think I could stir in blueberries? I love lemon flavor and blueberries!
Yesss, absolutely! I would just shake them in a bit of flour before adding them to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the pan while baking.
Hi there! Is the time for a Bundt cake pan or rectangular pan? I haven’t made it yet but looking forward to it!
Thanks!
This is for a bundt cake pan.
This sounds like the perfect cake for our ladies' afternoon "dessert & coffee" gathering in a couple of weeks.
Yes! This would be so perfect for that!