My mom’s been asking me to make a Lemon Loaf Cake for a while, so this past Saturday, I finally got around to it. Looking back, I should’ve made two Lemon Loaf Cakes, because I’m not joking, the cake was gone in 3 hours! I told my fam, as soon as I finished taking photos of it, they could have some… they inhaled it! I swear, I said, “Okay you can have some now,” I turned my back for like 30 seconds, and the whole thing was practically gone! I only got half a piece! At least I know the Lemon Loaf Cake is good, I’ll chalk this one up as a success!

This Lemon Loaf Cake is light and fluffy, with the bright, fresh flavor of lemon. Dare I say it’s better than Starbucks’ Lemon Pound Cake… oh yes, I went there!

The key to a beautifully, light, cake is creaming the ingredients in phases, to aerate them. The aeration adds air to the batter, and gives the cake volume. First we start by creaming the butter and sugar together. The melted butter and sugar, left untouched, can be rather dense. When we aerate it, we add air to the mixture to make it fluffy.

Once the butter and sugar are fluffy, then we add in the eggs, and cream the batter again, to once again give more volume to our cake. When that batter is fluffy, then we sift in our dry ingredients, which also contributes to a light and fluffy cake. Instead of the ingredients just falling into a dense heap, sifting them in, helps the dry ingredients fall lightly into the batter as they’re incorporated in.

The final step is to just barely cream in the milk and lemon juice. Once all the ingredients are combined, we don’t want to over mix them, because then our cake would be flat. By just barely mixing in the milk and lemon juice at the end, we’re ensuring we don’t over mix the batter — this helps the air, we first incorporated into our cake, stay in the batter. Then when we bake the Lemon Loaf Cake, the final result is a fluffy cake with a light, delicious crumble!

How to Make Lemon Loaf Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 325° Fahrenheit.
2. In a mixing bowl, using an electric hand mixer, cream together the melted butter and sugar, until fluffy, about 2 minutes.
3. Add in the two eggs, and cream again until fluffy, about one minute.
4. Using a sifter, sift in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Cream together with the wet ingredients.
5. Add in the milk and lemon juice, then mix the ingredients until just combined.
6. Line the bottom of a large loaf tin with parchment paper, and pour the cake batter into the loaf tin.
7. Place the cake into the oven and bake for 50 minutes. When 50 minutes is up, leave the cake in the oven, and increase the temperature of the oven to 350° Fahrenheit. Bake the cake for 10 more minutes.
8. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes. Then take a knife and go around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the loaf tin.
9. Flip the loaf tin over, and remove the cake from the tin. Remove the parchment paper from the bottom of the cake and place the cake on a cooling rack to cool.
10. While the cake is cooling, prepare the topping by mixing together the lemon juice and sugar.
11. Use a toothpick to poke a few small holes in the top of the cake. Then pour the lemon topping onto the top of the cake and use a knife to spread it across the top.
12. Once the topping has set, you can slice the cake and enjoy the goodness!