Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake! – Back to Basics!
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An easy lemon drizzle loaf cake – lemon sponge, lemon drizzle, lemon icing… what more could you want?! Another post in my back to basics series!
Lemon drizzle loaf cake
So, say hello to your new lemon addiction. I have always been a fan of lemon flavours, and this new post, another instalment in my back to basics series, is my lemon drizzle loaf cake. It’s easy, it’s delicious, and I love it.
In the past, I have uploaded my lemon lime drizzle cake – which is fairly similar. It’s an old post, with different quantities, and is obviously lemon and lime combined! As you all adore loaf cakes even more now though, I thought I would do an in-depth post into this beauty.
Tin
So… when you are starting with a loaf cake, you need the right tin. Loaf tins can vary greatly in size, even if they are described as being the same tin. For example, I have three different 2lb loaf tins, but they are all slightly different in how much water they can hold. Usually, this is okay as long as they are similar enough! For reference, this is the 2lb loaf tin that I use! If it helps, the exact measurements are – 24.4 x 14.4 x 6.9 cm. This may help you if your’s varies slightly!
Some loaf tins are still 2lb, but they are slightly wider and shallower, which means the bake time can vary – but baking a loaf cake is quite similar to baking a Bundt Cake. They can vary dependent on tin, just like a Bundt Cake, but usually they work out the same!
When I line the tin, I usually grease it slightly and then add parchment paper on top. I don’t then grease on top of the paper. I don’t feel the need, and if you use the correct type of baking parchment, then you definitely don’t need to do it!
Cake mix
Now when it comes to the cake mix, it really is just a basic cake mix. Even weight quantities of butter, sugar, eggs and flour – with lemon added in. Because it’s just the basic cake mix, you need to make sure the quantities are correct.
You can help this by weighing your eggs, in their shells, but generally I find 5 medium eggs = 250g of mix. It’s much easier this way. If you use large eggs, they can often be 60g, so I would only use 4 eggs, and only 240g each of the rest of the ingredients. I hope this makes sense.
When it comes to the lemon, you have two choices. Fresh lemon zest grated finely, or lemon extract! Either work well, and they both work the same! I swap between both each time, and they both work well. If you want to use the zest, you can then use the same lemons for the drizzles later.
Bake
When baking a loaf cake, it can vary a bit just like bundt cakes, as mentioned earlier! The usual timings is 55-65 minutes, because it’s quite a lot of mix, in a smaller sized tin (compared to a round tin!).
Sometimes, the baking can take longer though. My oven is a fan oven, so I put it on the fan setting at 160C – I set the timer for 55 minutes, and then check it. If when I open the door and touch the tin the cake wobbles, it’s definitely not done! However, if it’s not wobbling it’s worth checking.
Checking a cake is a fine balance though. When opening the oven door, you really don’t want to take too long. For every second an oven door is open, you will lose LOTS of heat. If your cake isn’t finished baking, it can sometimes also sink if taken out too early.
Lemon drizzle
For the lemon drizzle, you want to mix together the lemon juice and caster sugar – it makes a sort of cloudy drizzly paste – spoon this over the cake once it’s come out of the oven and it will soak in. Leave the cake to cool fully before moving from the tin!
The wonderful thing about this sort of cake is that it’s simple, but it’s so delicious. The lemon drizzle keeps the cake lovely and moist – and it won’t dry out. I use my stand mixer to mix the cake ingredients together, and it’s amazing. Although, this isn’t essential.
Decoration
Once cooled, you can optionally decorate it – I use the icing sugar, ‘watered’ down with some more lemon juice – and just drizzle it over with a small spoon! I then sprinkle on some lemon zest to make it look pretty, but both the icing drizzle and zest are optional. They just look nice!.
You can of course leave it completely plain, top it with a buttercream or even a fresh cream topping – that’s the charm of a bake like this, you can do whatever you want.
Top tips
A handy method to check if your cake is ready, is to (carefully!!) listen to the cake – if it’s making a bubbling/crackling sound, then it’s not actually finished baking either. You’ll want to continue baking till the skewer is clean, and also not making a sound.
I classically use caster sugar for the sponge and main drizzle, but this can be switched with golden caster sugar, light brown sugar, or even dark brown – but the changes can change the flavour!
I use medium eggs as I have said, and I use self-raising flour. If you can’t access self-raising, you will want to use plain flour with baking powder added in. You whisk in 2 level tsps of baking powder per 150g of flour, before using it in a recipe! It’s often easier to make a larger batch though, and then just store the flour for later use! Easy and delicious.
I hope you love this recipe, any questions leave them below! x
Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake!
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 250 g unsalted butter
- 250 g caster sugar
- 250 g self raising flour
- 5 medium eggs
- Zest of 2 lemons (2tsp lemon extract)
Drizzle
- 75 ml lemon juice
- 75 g caster sugar
Decoration
- 50 g icing sugar
- 1-2 tsps lemon juice
- Lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan - grease and line your 2lb loaf tin!
- Beat together your butter and sugar together until light and creamy!
- Add in your flour, eggs and lemon and beat again until combined. It'll be a smooth cake mixture!
- Add the mix into the cake tin and bake. This can take 55-65 minutes - but check from 50 minutes onwards.
- Towards the end of baking - in a bowl, mix together your 75ml lemon juice and 75g caster sugar together.
- Once the cake is baked, drizzle this over the cake, whilst still in the tin. Let the cake cool fully.
- Once the cake is cooled, remove from the tin.
- If you want to decorate, mix in lemon juice to your icing sugar until you reach the desired consistency.
- Drizzle this over the cake, and sprinkle on some lemon zest for decoration! Enjoy!
Notes
- I use this loaf tin!
- If it helps, I also use this baking parchment in my bakes!
- As mentioned in the post, if you are using large eggs - use four large eggs, and 240g flour, sugar, butter.
- If your cake sinks, it hasn't finished baking! Loaf tin baking times can vary so check on the cake from 50 minutes onwards.
- This cake will last for 4-5 days at room temp! I store it in a cake storage tin.
- You can easily water down the icing for the drizzle with water instead, but the lemon juice is more zingy!
- If you want to make a smaller cake you can - reduce it down by one medium egg, and use 200g of ingredients. Or even reduce by two eggs, and use 150g of ingredients. The fewer the ingredients the quicker the bake time!
ENJOY!
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J x
© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.
Recipe was great and cake was gorgeous.
Will recommend to anyone as very simple recipe to
follow.
Hey… first I luv your recipes and your videos… but please help.. I’ve made a few times but my lemon drizzle loaf keeps sinking in the middle.. please help…..
Hey! Thank you so much! That sounds like it could be underbaked xx
Hi Jane,
How much cake batter should I put into my 2lb loaf tin? Is it the whole mixture or like 2/3 ?
Hey! You would need to fill the tin to 2/3 xx
Has anyone attempted to make this gluten free?
Hi Jane, question please! Once you’ve mixed the butter and sugar together, would it be better to mix the eggs in first, before adding flour and zest? First time making it and I threw it all in at the same time and beat it – should the mix be very thick? Fingers crossed it turns out okay. Thanks x
Hi Jane,
I’m wanting to make a smaller version of this, maybe a 1lb loaf tin, can I please ask what to do with the measurements of all the ingredients, would it just be a case of halving everything? Thank you x
Hey! I only make it as a 2lb so I assume halving would work but the baking time would change xx
Hi. I have bought all the ingredients but i noticed that you baked yours using a fan oven. May I know if I can bake it using non-fan (the one with top and bottom elements) kind of oven. If so, what temperature should I set my oven to and does the baking time also change?
Hello! As you can see on the recipe I give two temperatures – the 180 is a regular oven and the 160 is a fan x
Hi, could I make this recipe as an all-in-one mix rather than creaming butter and sugar etc please.
You can do, sometimes it just results in a different textured sponge!
Hi Jane! I wanted to bake this as a traybake (13×9 like all your tray baked). Can I use the same quantities to fit that tin? And as it would be shallower than a loaf tin will the cake become too soggy if i drizzle hot out of the oven or shall I wait a bit? Thank you and looking forward to trying this!
You need to follow the guidance of my G&T traybake as the measurements are different for a tin that size. And no the drizzle method stays the same x
Absolutely delicious and so easy to make came out
Perfect
Would I be able to do this in a round tin similar to the ones used in your other cake recipes such as the carrot cake?
I love lemon drizzle cake so thought I would try your recipe Jane. The cake is so easy to make and tastes absolutely delicious. So light , lovely and lemony and cooked in exactly 50 minutes. I would recommend this cake to anyone. Thank you xx
Oh My Goodness Jane – this is amazing – I can bake (sort of) so I am expanding my bakes and the explanation you have given for why you have done what you have and the reasons for 4 v 5 eggs makes so much sense and I really appreciate you taking the time to explain these bits. I am using my work colleagues as guinea pigs and 1 colleague said that LDC was his absolute favourite but I had knocked it out of the park! …so thank you 🙂
I am doing a chocolate orange version this week 🙂
The outside of mine came out slightly crispy and is too dark of a colour than I’d like – would this be because if of the butter I used, over greasing the tin, oven temp or something else? 🙁 x
It sounds like the oven was too hot – its worth lowering by like 20c and see if that helps! x
This is the most delicious lemon loaf cake I have ever tasted! I only set out to make one for a doorstop dash Mother’s Day present on Sunday and ended up making three more because of how delicious the loaf was.
Thank you so much for such a tasty recipe! I’m so excited to use your other recipes to make equally delicious treats now x
Hi Jane, do you think would it work with bluberries in the middle?
Hiii! Yes it would, 200g and coat them in flours first x
Hi Jane, I have 1 question I’m hoping you can help with. I’ve made this cake/loaf 3 times and I was just wi dering how I can get the top flatter? Beautiful recipe aswell! Xx
Loaf cakes are designed to have a crack/higher middle in my opinion and that is part of the charm – but you can try lowering the temp of your oven by like 20c and baking for quite a bit longer instead! xx
I love making this! But is there a way of making this gluten free at all? Xx
Hello! Its worth switching to a gluten free flour and adding xantham gum x
Thank you so much for the recipe! This is best cake I’ve ever baked and I’ve baked a lotttt of cakes. Finally nailed a lemon drizzle loaf (first time using the loaf tin hence the need of a recipe) but damn! Absolutely amazing, moist and full of flavour. Perfection.