Just a lovely, simple Lemon Yogurt Cake that makes the perfect tea time treat! You’ll love the bright lemon flavour, that it’s so beautifully moist and only requires one bowl and a whisk. Finished with a lemon glaze, this is an easy cake you can whip up on short notice. Yoghurt keeps the cake moist so it lasts for days and days! It’s the same batter used in this Blueberry Lemon Cake and Strawberry Cake.
Glazed Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe
This Lemon Cake is one of my emergency quick and easy cake recipes, something I can get in the oven super quickly when I’m short on time. There’s no creaming of butter required, it’s a quick dump-and-mix cake. (When I’m longer on time I might instead plump for this sponge-based Lemon Cake with Fluffy Lemon Frosting …)
The “secret ingredient” in this is yoghurt. Yoghurt is a brilliant baking ingredient because it thickens the batter which means less flour required which = more moist cake. 🙂
I love how golden brown this cake is straight out of the oven. It almost glows!
Lemon Glaze
In the spirit of this being a simple teacake, I keep the frosting simple too. I just use a Glaze or a quick Cream Cheese Frosting.
For the glaze, I like to make the glaze a bit thicker than typical glazes because it adds that extra oomph of sweetness and stickiness to the cake, as opposed to cutting it in half and sandwiching it with something.
Added bonus: I love how the drips look and how the glaze isn’t see through.
If a glaze isn’t your thing or you want more frosting, I’ve also included my quick Cream Cheese Frosting. This is different to the usual Cream Cheese Frosting I use for things like Red Velvet and Carrot Cake which requires a stand mixer and a good 7 minutes of fast beating.
In the spirit of the simplicity of this quick Lemon Cake recipe, I use my shortcut Cream Cheese Frosting which I make simply by mixing spreadable Cream Cheese (comes in tubs, not blocks) with lemon juice and icing sugar. No stand mixer required, no need to even wait to soften the cream cheese. Just mix it up with a wooden spoon, dollop and spread. 🙂
You know that pretty cake decorations aren’t my thing. I’d probably spend more time styling a giant plate of slow cooked meat than I would spend decorating a towering cake! 😂
So in my usual form, I’ve kept it nice and simple – just some lemon slices and a few sprigs of baby’s breath from a bunch I happened to have.
This cake may be simple but in all honesty, it’s probably the cake I made most often last year. I actually intended to share it earlier this year, but then I got all excited because blueberries came into season so I published the Blueberry Lemon Cake instead (same cake, but with blueberries).
So I sat on this Lemon Cake recipe for a couple of months until an adequate amount of time had passed. And finally, I’m sharing it! – Nagi x
More quick, emergency cakes
No creaming butter, no stand mixer for any of these!
Watch how to make it
Watch how to make this lemon yogurt cake!
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Glazed Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe
Ingredients
Wet:
- 2/3 cup / 165 ml vegetable or canola oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 ½ tbsp grated lemon rind (1 large or 2 medium lemons)
- ¼ cup / 65 ml fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup / 250g plain yoghurt (Note 1)
- 1.25 cups / 275g caster sugar (superfine sugar, granulated ok too)
Dry:
- 2 cups/300g plain flour (all purpose flour)
- 4 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
Glaze:
- 1 3/4 cup / 210 g icing sugar (powdered sugar)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tbsp plain yogurt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C/350F (standard) or 160C/320F (fan/convection). Grease a 20 cm / 8” cake pan with butter.
- Place Wet ingredients in a bowl. Whisk until combined.
- Sprinkle over flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk until smooth – few small lumps is ok.
- Pour into pan – it should be fairly thick but pourable (see video). Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Remove metal ring and cool on rack then glaze.
Glaze:
- Place ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Test down the side of the bowl to get the right thickness, using 1 tsp of yoghurt at a time to thin it out if required. Glaze should drip (slowly, because it’s thick) but not be see through.
- Place rack on a tray or baking paper.
- Pour glaze over the middle of the cake, gently push towards the edges so it drips down the sides.
- Let it set for 1 hour before transferring to a serving plate.
- See note for how I did the lemon slices in the photos, and the alternative quick Cream Cheese Frosting.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
LIFE OF DOZER
You can just imagine the thoughts running through that furry head:
“Will I make it to the door??”
“How hard would it be to scoff it down on the run??”
“I wonder if she’s going to frost it? 😳 Maybe I should wait…”
Yum yum yum 🤤 Moist and light and so so easy to make! I had slightly sweetened yoghurt so I used less sugar – perfect. Highly recommend and will definitely make again.
one of the best cakes ever!
Delicious lemon cake, reduced the sugar and didn’t add icing/glaze.
Moist cake and easy recipe!
Delicious lemon cake, reduced the sugar and didn’t add icing/glaze.
I used a loaf tin, needed 1 hour to bake instead of the 50mins you recommended. Lovely cake!
If I made this in a loaf tin what would the cooking time be?
Made this last week. It didn’t look particularly special when it came out of the oven but my goodness- it is so lovely. Don’t skip the icing – it makes the cake. Easy and delicious- it is now my go to lemon cake
Is the time different with a 13×9 dish?
Is the time different with a 14×9 dish?
How can this be made without the 1/4 cup of lemon juice? I have one that doesn’t care for lemon. Thank you
You realise this is a lemon cake recipe, right? You could always select one if Nagi’s other cake recipes if you don’t want to put lemon in a lemon cake!
Large eggs or medium?! Also, giving fat by weight rather than in ml would be super useful! 💖
Easy to convert oil to butter on Google
I was advised 151g to 2/3 cup of oil
I had a glut of lemons so made this. Turned out fabulous and now will be on high rotation.
I used Jalna Vanilla full fat yogurt and also put in a splash of vanilla extract.
I also put in more lemon zest as I had two tablespoons of it so no point putting the small amount in the freezer.
I used a silicone loaf tin that I lined with baking paper.
The icing was too running but that could be because I used soft icing sugar instead of pure icing sugar. We are just scooping it onto cut slices until it runs out.
Thank you Nagi I always know that things will turn out in your recipes and if they don’t its my fault why that happens. So far all recipes have been 100%
Delicious- moist, perfect lemon level and moreish. Found better in my oven to take out at 40-45 min.
Can your lemon glaze cake recipe be made as a gluten free cake? It doesn’t say which plain flour…
Hi Nagi, I wonder why you use plain flour and baking powder rather than self raising flour? Can I substitute SR flour?
The recipe is delightful and my ace cake eater in this house approves!
Tracey, South Australia
Have made this cake twice now. It’s absolutely superb. It has a light crumb, stores well and the icing makes it irresistible. Thank you Nagi
Speaking as a cake decorator, may I suggest you don’t use baby’s breath to decorate your cakes. It’s toxic and shouldn’t be near a cake’s surface.
I have made the lemon cake and it was delicious, then recently when the passion fruit were plentiful I swapped the lemon juice for strained Passionfruit and substituted for lemon juice and orange zest instead of lemon zest, and made a Passionfruit icing 240g icing sugar, 10g butter and 2tbsp Passionfruit pulp. It was delicious too!
This recipe never fails. To increase the lemon flavour I added lemon curd to both the cake and icing – next level! Yum
My son is dairy free and would love a lemon cake. What would be a great substitute for the yoghurt please?
Can I infuse a lemon syrup into this cake ?
Many thanks
This cake is delicious, but does make a very thick cake. I find it works better in a 22×32 cm rectangular tin. The same goes for the lemon cake.