Easy Lemon Loaf Cake Recipe (Video) (2024)

January 1, 2021 By Brandy 12 Comments

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The easiest lemon loaf recipe! Made with the ease of a cake mix and homemade lemon icing, it is absolutley delicious. You’ll love this cake!

You might also like our lemon sugar cookies! Our famous bakery style sugar cookies taken up a notch with a delicious lemon frosting and lemon wedge.

Watch our step by step video!

Easy Lemon Loaf

If you’ve been around for a minute, you know how much I love lemons. You also know that I rarely make cakes from scratch. Why go through the effort when boxed cake mixes work amazingly well?

I took a series of cake decorating classes years ago, and one of the biggest takeaways that I got from my instructor was that boxed cake mixes are the way to go 90% of the time. She shared several tips for doctoring up a cake mix to make it your own and I’ve found it super helpful over the years!This lemon cake is no exception. Our lemon loaf is ridiculously easy to make with the aid of a lemon cake mix, but don’t worry—-you still get ALL THE CREDIT.

The addition of sour cream makes this lemon loaf amazingly moist. You can add 1/2 cup or 1 cup. 1 cup will yield a richer/slightly denser loaf, and 1/2 will be a little lighter but still moist. Our homemade lemon frosting is my FAVORITE to add to cookies and cupcakes. I like spreading it across my cooled lemon loaf, then letting it chill until it sets up, making it easier to cut into slices.

Loaf Ingredients

lemon cake mix
eggs
water
oil
sour cream

Lemon Frosting Ingredients

butter
lemon juice
powdered sugar

Baking your loaf couldn’t be easier. Mix the ingredients together using an electric mixer. Stir in sour cream. Bake for about an hour in a loaf pan then let the pan cool for 10 minutes before removing the loaf and letting it cool completely on a rack.

This bakes in a standard 9×5” loaf pan and the pan will be very full. It may take over an hour to bake.

To make this in two smaller loaf pans (8×4”) start checking for doneness around 35 minutes.

Frost the cooled loaf with the lemon icing then chill until the icing is set. This recipe yields 12 slices of delicious, tangy, cake. This cake can be stored in the refrigerator or at room temperature for several days.

More lemon recipes you’ll love!

Lemon Curd Mini Cheesecakes

Lemon Blueberry Scones

Lemon Thumbprint Cookies

Easy Lemon Loaf Recipe

Easy Lemon Loaf Cake

The easiest lemon loaf recipe! Made with the ease of a cake mix and homemade lemon icing, it is absolutley delicious. You'll love this cake!

4.17 from 12 votes

Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour

Cool: 2 hours hours

Total Time: 3 hours hours 10 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 slices

Ingredients

Lemon Loaf

1 box lemon cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup water
1/2 cup sour cream

Frosting

1/4 cup butter softened
3-4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spray a 9x5" loaf pan with non stick cooking spray. Line bottom with a piece of parchment paper.
Stir cake mix, oil, water and eggs together. Beat with electric mixer 1 minute.
Stir in sour cream.
Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 60 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the center of the loaf. If it comes out clean, it is done.
Let loaf cool 10 minutes. Run butter knife around edges of loaf and pan. Turn pan over to remove cake. Peel off parchment paper from the bottom of the cake.
Let cake cool completely.
Mix butter, lemon juice and powdered sugar togehter. Beat with electric mixer until smooth.
Frost top of lemon loaf. Refrigerate until set.

Notes

This bakes in a standard 9x5” loaf pan and the pan will be very full. It may take over an hour to bake.

To make this in two smaller loaf pans (8x4”) start checking for doneness around 35 minutes.

Nutrition

Calories: 435kcal

Brandy

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Welcome! I'm Brandy, mother to 5 darling kiddos and a cute black lab named Toby. My husband is in the Coast Guard so we've lived all over the place, turning each house into a home. I love baking, sewing, making cute things with my kids, and sharing what I've learned with all of you!

Reader Interactions

Comments

Sany says
April 18, 2022 at 11:20 am
Hi! How do you think I could adjust this with a yellow cake mix?
Reply
- Brandy says
  April 18, 2022 at 11:35 am
  You could add lemon zest and lemon extract to the cake batter!
  Reply
Debbie james says
June 15, 2022 at 7:49 pm
Do you use a regular lemon cake mix or the lemon pound cake mix?
Reply
- Brandy says
  June 15, 2022 at 7:59 pm
  Regular lemon cake mix!
  Reply
Kelly says
February 1, 2023 at 8:04 pm

I followed your recipe to a T.. the middle never cooked I was so excited lol
Reply
- Brandy says
  February 1, 2023 at 8:40 pm
  Every oven cooks differently so adding time should have helped. It’s basically just a cake baked in a 9×5 pan instead of a 9×13.
  Reply
Clarissa Kovats says
May 4, 2023 at 2:13 pm
Can I make this this loaf using a white pound cake mix by adding lemon pudding and fresh lemon juice?
Reply
Clarissa says
May 4, 2023 at 2:22 pm
This is a queation! Can I make this lemon recipe from a white pound cake mix by adding lemon pudding mix
and fresh lemon juice>
Reply
- Brandy says
  May 5, 2023 at 10:03 pm
  I don’t see why not. 🙂
  Reply
Tricia says
December 30, 2023 at 1:09 pm
I made this last night. I’ve looked for an easy lemon cake similar to Starbucks lemon loaf cake and this is it! Very easy and so so good.
Reply
- Brandy says
  December 30, 2023 at 1:31 pm
  Yay! I’m so glad to hear this! Lemon is my favorite cake flavor. 🍋
  Reply
Anna says
March 13, 2024 at 2:08 pm

This was awful. I put it in an extra 20 mins and still wasn’t cooked -don’t even try to tell me it was my oven. It was not. I still tried a bite and it had NO lemon flavour and tasted like eggs. Disgusting and a waste of ingredients.
Reply