This delicious Lemon Bundt Cake is bursting with flavor and filled with lemon zest and juice! It's the perfect dessert for lemon lovers!
Lemon is one of my favorite flavors in desserts and this Lemon Bundt Cake is the real deal for lemon lovers out there. I'm so excited to share this recipe and add to it to my collection of cakes on this blog! It's so easy to put together, it only requires one pan, and no mixer! If you love lemons, this cake is for you!
Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Bursting with flavor: This Lemon Bundt Cake has loads of lemon flavor, especially due to the zest infused in the sugar!
- Moist & Tender: The vegetable oil and sour cream in this cake create such a delicious and tender cake.
- Easy: It's an easy cake that doesn't require planning ahead and it comes together in no time!
Jump to:
Ingredients You'll Need
- All purpose flour: This cake works wonderful with regular all purpose flour.
- Baking Powder: Just baking powder to help the cake rise.
- Sugar: Granulated sugar to sweeten the cake.
- Melted butter: I love butter in cakes, but in this one I think melted butter works well. Unsalted butter is what we need for this cake.
- Vegetable oil: Using oil helps create a moist and tender cake.
- Lemon juice & zest: Two key ingredients in this cake. Loads of zest and lemon juice.
- Eggs: Room temperature large eggs are essential.
- Sour cream: To create an even more moist and flavorful cake, we use sour cream.
Lemon Glaze
- Powdered Sugar: using powdered sugar to create a sweet glaze.
- Lemon juice: Adding a bit of tang for the lemon flavor.
- Milk: If needed, using a little bit of milk to help thin out the glaze.
See recipe card for quantities.
How to Make Lemon Bundt Cake
Prep the pan: Prepare your 10-12 cup bundt pan by spraying it heavily with baking spray. Make sure to get every single nook and cranny so that the cake doesn't stick. My favorite method is to spray using a baking spray like Baker's Joy. This is the method that works 100% of the time for me.
Mix Dry Ingredients: Combine flour, salt and baking powder and whisk until combined.
Infuse the Sugar: Combine the sugar and the lemon zest together in a large bowl, and using your fingers, rub them together. This helps bring out the oils in the zest, which yields more flavor.
Combine Wet Ingredients: To the sugar/zest bowl, add the lemon juice, melted butter and oil and mix using a spatula, then add the eggs one at a time making sure that the eggs are mixed after each addition. Then add the sour cream and mix until all is incorporated.
Add the Dry Ingredients: To the wet batter, add the dry ingredients and mix until all is incorporated. Don't over mix.
Pour & Bake: Pour into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
Make the Glaze: In a bowl, add the powdered sugar and lemon juice and mix until combined. If it needs thinned out, add a little milk. Pour the glaze over the cake and enjoy!
Pro Tips
- Measure Flour Correctly: As always, with any recipe, use a kitchen scale, as it is the best form of measuring your ingredients. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, fluff your flour, scoop flour with a spoon into a measuring cup and level off.
- Generously Great Your Bundt Pan: This is a VERY important step. If you don't grease your bundt pan, your cake will stick and it will be a mess. Avoid that by making sure to grease every single nook and cranny!
- Infuse the sugar with zest: To achieve a cake bursting with lemon, infuse the sugar with the zest by rubbing the zest and sugar together with your fingers to release the oils in the zest. This creates an even better flavored cake.
FAQ
To prevent a bundt cake from sticking, generously grease your pan. I find that greasing the pan using a baking spray and making sure to get every single nook and crappy helps when inverting the cake. 100% of the time they come out clean!
Changes made to this recipe in 2023
I originally published this recipe in March of 2022. Changes made to this version:
- Added more lemon juice to the recipe
- Changed the glaze.
- Original glaze consisted of cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and lemon juice that was poured over right after taking the cake out of the oven and before inverting.
Other Citrus Recipes to Try
📖 Recipe
Lemon Bundt Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 3 cups (360g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1½ teaspoon Baking powder
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- zest of 2 large lemons
- ½ cup (114g) unsalted butter, 1 stick melted
- ½ cup (110g) vegetable oil
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup (260g) sour cream
Glaze
- 1⅔ cup Powdered sugar
- 2-3 tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ tablespoon milk if needed
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 325°
- Prep the pan: Prepare your 10-12 cup bundt pan by spraying it heavily with baking spray. Make sure to get every single nook and cranny so that the cake doesn't stick. My favorite method is to spray using a baking spray like Baker's Joy. This is the method that works 100% of the time for me.
- Mix Dry Ingredients: Combine flour, salt and baking powder and whisk until combined.
- Infuse the Sugar: In a large bowl, combine the sugar and the lemon zest together in a large bowl, and using your fingers, rub them together. This helps bring out the oils in the zest, which yields more flavor.
- Combine Wet Ingredients: To the sugar/zest bowl, add the lemon juice, melted butter and oil and mix using a spatula, then add the eggs one at a time making sure that the eggs are mixed after each addition. Then add the sour cream and mix until all is incorporated.
- Add the Dry Ingredients: To the wet batter, add the dry ingredients and mix until all is incorporated. Don't over mix.
- Pour & Bake: Pour into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before inverting on a wire rack. Let cool completely before adding glaze.
Glaze
- In a bowl, add the powdered sugar and lemon juice and mix until combined. If it needs thinned out, add a little milk. Pour the glaze over the cake and enjoy!
- Store leftovers in an airtight container.
Melanie says
This lemon bundt cake is everything it proposes to be! It is bursting with lemon flavour from the addition of both lemon juice and lemon zest in the cake. It is also moist, because of the inclusion of butter, sour cream and vegetable oil in the batter.
The lemon glaze has cream cheese in it, which gives it an almost cheesecake like taste. This beautiful glaze is then poured over the cake while it’s still in the pan. You subsequently have the option of pricking the cake with holes so that the glaze soaks through the cake or you can simply leave it as is. I highly recommend you prick the cake so that the glaze seeps through. This takes the cake to a whole other level of deliciousness!!
This is a luscious cake! I enjoyed making it and I absolutely love the finished product. You must try this cake. It is so worth it!
Kima says
Thank you so much for the wonderful review, Melanie! I am so happy you loved this cake! 🙂
Keyri says
This is such a perfect recipe. All the ingredients are easy to get. It's moist, with such a perfect combination. My 2nd time trying it. I recommend it.
Ashleigh Scott says
Love this recipe! I made this cake for a family get together over the weekend and it was perfect! Thanks for sharing🫶🏻🫶🏻
Hakima says
Thank you so much for trying out the recipe and leaving a review, Ashleigh! So glad you enjoyed it! 🙂