Easiest Lemon Cake Starts with Lemons and a Box Mix
If the pucker-y-ness of juicy lemon bars parts your lips into a smile, you’ll jump for joy for lemon cake loaves with tart icing. The best part is, you only need six ingredients to bake two loaves of cake and just three to ice them.
If you have extra lemons when you’re done baking lemon cake, use them to make smooth and smoky garlic hummus or squeeze lemon juice onto steamed broccoli with freshly grated parmesan cheese.
How to Store Lemons
Here in the Midwest, it’s uncommon to have easy access to freshly picked lemons, whether from trees or the farmers market. So we resort to buying a few on every trip to the grocery store.
The following articles include tips for storing lemons so we can bake lemon cake anytime we want. One of my best tips: if you have favorite lemon recipes, measure out the juice and the zest to make the recipe a couple of times. Freeze the juice and zest in those portions and you’ll have what you need whenever you pull that recipe card.
(I do the same thing with bananas so I can bake Cinnamon Banana Bars with Vanilla Cream Frosting and Double Chocolate Banana Muffin Loaves on a whim.)
Resources
- How To Store Lemons So They Stay Fresh Longer from Southern Living
- The Only Way You Should Store Lemons, According to a Food Expert from Simply Recipes
- The Best Way to Keep Lemons Fresh for a Whole Month from The Kitchn
- How to Store Lemons the Right Way from Taste of Home
When Life Hands You Lemon Cake
Thank you for being here and reading this post. I haven’t been crushing it on my blog lately, which means Google forgets about me. I’ve been kicking ass on the treadmill and trying to scale down my ever-lovin’ sweet tooth. And because that means being more mindful when a 9×9 pan of brownies disappears in 48 hours, baking hasn’t been a priority.
But baking is in my blood—a creative outlet and my love language—so I’m back at it. I just need more friends to share it with. So pucker up and have fun with this recipe.
Sweet wishes,
Easiest Lemon Cake Loaves
Equipment
- 2 standard size loaf pans approximately 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches
Ingredients
Cake Loaves
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- 15.25 oz yellow cake mix, or vanilla cake mix
- 4 oz instant lemon pudding mix
- 3 lemons, juice and zest
Lemon Icing
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp salted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 lemon at room temperature or slightly warm (use juice and zest)
- 1 Tbsp milk, optional if needed to thin the icing and the lemon juice is gone
Instructions
Cake Loaves
- Heat oven to 350℉. Grease two standard loaf pans OR just one if you want one larger, tall loaf.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric stand mixer, beat or whisk together the oil, eggs, and sour cream.
- Zest 3 lemons. Set aside. Then add the juice from all 3 lemons to the egg mixture.
- Whisk or beat in the cake mix and pudding mix. Stir in lemon zest.
- Pour evenly into two greased loaf pans. Bake at 350℉ for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. (If baking in one loaf pan, you may need to bake an extra 10 minutes or so.) Cool completely before icing.
Lemon Icing
- Zest one lemon. Set zest aside. Squeeze the juice out of the lemon.
- In a bowl, beat together the powdered sugar and softened butter. Add the lemon juice. Be sure it's room temperature or slightly warmer (5 seconds in the microwave) so it doesn't seize up the butter. At this point, the icing should be the consistency you want for drizzling on top of the loaves. If not, add more powdered sugar or lemon juice (or room temp milk) to get the consistency, Sprinkle lemon zest onto the icing. Let rest for at least 1 hour. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Nutrition
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All text and images © Staci Mergenthal • Random Sweets
