This Lemon Loaf is a spin off of the popular Starbucks Lemon Loaf. While theirs is more of a pound cake-ish texture, mine is a bit more cakey, fluffy, and moist. I’m a firm believer than anything baked from scratch is automatically 10 x’s better. Factor in, baked from scratch, and having the freedom to alter the proportions of flavor – this recipe is a 10/10.

What I mean by having the freedom to alter the proportions of flavor is that if you wanted to tone down the lemon flavor a bit, you can take out the leon juice in the glaze. Or you can, fresh blueberries coated in flour to the batter and make this a lemon blueberry loaf! Homemade is better for a number of reasons, this being one of them 🙂

Gathering Your Ingredients

I played around with this recipe a couple times to get the flavors just right. I wanted to avoid using lemon extract – and instead use all fresh lemon juice & zest. Everything in this recipe is very simple and basic. And of course, it’s best to have the perishable ingredients brought to room temperature before baking. This will help everything combine together better.

Lemon Loaf Ingredients | The Squeaky Mixer

Glazing

Getting the glaze to the perfect consistency is key to getting the right transparency icing and drip on the cake. If the glaze had too much lemon juice or milk added to it, it will be too thin and almost just seep into the cake. If it’s too thick, it will be too hard to spread evenly and might even pick up little pieces of the cake and add annoying little lumps of cake in what we wanted to be a smooth finish.

I hope you enjoy this bright and refreshing Lemon Loaf Cake! As always I ADORE seeing you tag me on social media showing me your recreations. So please tag me @thesqueakymixer to make my day!

@thesqueakymixer
My take on the beautiful Lemon Loaf 🍋 Mine is a bit cakier and fluffier than the Starbucks Loaf whoch is more pound cakey. Both are great but homemade is…MUAH CHEFS KISS 🍋 Full recipe is on my website, link in bio! 💛 #baking #fyp #bakingtiktok #bakingszn #recipes #lemon #lemonloaf #lemonrecipe #caketiktok #thesqueakymixer #tutorial #cakes #cakerecipe #caketiktok
♬ original sound – The Squeaky Mixer

Lemon Loaf

5 from 2 votes

Recipe by Maddison Koutrouba – thesqueakymixer.com

Servings

8-10

servings

Total time

hours

Cook Mode

Keep the screen of your device on.

Ingredients

US Metric

1 1/2 cups 1 1/2 all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. 1/4 baking soda
1 tsp. 1 baking powder
1/4 tsp. 1/4 salt
1 cup 1 + 1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
3 3 eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup 1/4 vegetable oil
1/4 cup 1/4 unsalted butter
2 tsp. 2 vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. 1 lemon zest
1/4 cup 1/4 lemon juice
3/4 cups 3/4 sour cream
Lemon Glaze
3/4 cups 3/4 confectioner’s sugar
Tbsp. lemon juice
Tbsp. milk (add 1-2 tsp. more as needed)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. and grease and line a standard 9″ x 5″ loaf pan. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a larger bowl, using a hand held mixer or whisk, mix together the sugar and eggs. Mix for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture is lighter in color and fluffier.
Add the vegetable oil and melted butter to the egg mixture. Continue to whisk until fully combined.
Add the vanilla extract, lemon zest, lemon juice, and sour cream to the egg mixture. Mix until everything is nice and smooth and there are no lumps.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until everything is fully combined and smooth.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Cover the top with aluminum foil to prevent the top from browning too fast. Try to create a dome with the aluminum foil so when the cake rises, it doesn’t hit and stick to the foil.
Bake for 50 minutes on a middle rack. After 50 minutes, remove the foil and check on the cake. The top should still be pale and the sides should be nice and browned. Close the oven and bump the temperature to 350 degrees F and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until the middle does not jiggle.
Allow the cake to cool completely before glazing. I let the loaf sit in the pan for about 10 minutes after coming out of the oven then transferred it to a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.
To make the glaze, whisk all of the ingredients together. When adding in the milk, it’s best to add a little at a time so you are able to judge the consistency and add more milk as needed. If you want a really strong lemon flavor, skip out on the milk and only use confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice.
Once the cake is completely cooled, spoon and spread the glaze on the cake. Allow the glaze to drip down the sides a bit.
Allow the glaze to set on the cake in the fridge for about 20 minutes before slicing.
Slice and enjoy!

Notes

To store this Lemon Loaf, you can either slice the cake completely then lay the slices flat in a large ziplock bag then seal and keep in the fridge for up to one week. Or you can freeze for up to a month. To store the entire, uncut loaf, place the glazed loaf back into the loaf pan then wrap tightly with plastic wrap to keep fresh.