One day, Disha, a friend of mine, made this cake for her boss and I got to taste some of it too. It was delicious. She claimed this was her first time baking a cake and she had done a fabulous job so I was even more interested. I have a lot of first-time bakers asking me for cake recipes and although everything I bake is the easiest possible bakes, this testimonial is from a first-time baker.
This is a Masterchef Australia dessert season recipe for cupcakes which she adapted into cakes so I decided to do the same. Instead of a thick frosting, I opted for a glaze. I baked this with another friend, Indrani, who moved to Sydney last month. All in all, sweet, sour, fragrant, and delicious 🙂
For more easy cake recipes, check out: eggless chocolate sponge cake, microwave cake, apple streusel cake, and pressure cooker cake recipe.
Lemon Diva Cake
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Makes one 8 inch cake or 12 cupcakes
Adapted from: Julie’s Goodwin’s Lemon Diva Cupcake Recipe (Masterchef Recipe)
Ingredients:
100 gm of butter (just under 1/2 cup)
185 gm of white sugar (3/4 cup + 1 tbsp)
1 tsp of vanilla extract
2 of eggs (see notes for eggless option)
200 gm of self-raising flour (1.5 cups + 1 tbsp – see notes for substitutes)
1/2 cup of milk
2 tsp of lemon zest
How to make (Eggless) Lemon Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C / 350F. Grease a cake pan with butter or baking spray or line your cupcake tray, whichever you are using. Set aside.
2. Beat butter, sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla extract until pale and it runs like a rubbon when you lift the whisk. Using an electric beater is much quicker and should take you about 3-5 mins. If doing by hand, beat vigorously for about 10 mins.
3. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until combined. Add the flour and milk alternately and stir well after each addition so that no streaks of flour remain. Be gently, you shouldn’t overmix at this stage.
3. Pour into the lined or greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 mins (cupcakes will take lesser time) until the top turns a golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with dry crumbs.
4. 5 mins after removing the cake from the oven, transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before pouring the glaze over it.
Lemon Glaze Recipe
As I have mentioned before, I hardly ever follow a standard recipe for frosting since I prefer my frosting light and not too sweet. I add ingredients as I go and stop when I feel it’s ready. So, the measurements below are approximate.
1 cup icing sugar (or powdered sugar)
1/4 cup softened butter
2 tsp lemon juice or lemon zest
Beat all the ingredients together until well combined. If too stick, slather it on the cake or add 2 tbsp milk if you want to pour it over. I added milk and poured it over the cooled cake.
Notes:
– Self-raising flour is flour you get to buy that already has the leavning agents like baking powder and salt added. To make one cup self-raising flour at home, take 1 cup plain flour or maida and add 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt to it.
– To make this lemon cake eggless, replace the 2 eggs with 2 tbsp flax seed meal and 6 tbsp warm water beaten well together and set aside for 10 mins until thick. I baked an eggless version when I went to Raks’ place for lunch with Jey. The cake turns out a bit more stickier and moist. I had frosted that cake with melted chocolate chips but stuck to the rest of the recipe as it is.
– The measurements in cups look a bit funny because I adapted from weight to cups for your ease. I don’t like weighing ingredients either (although it’s better and more accurate) so I did the conversions before baking. The measurements I have given in brackets is what I used.
– This cake keeps well at room temperature for 2 days and in the refrigerator for 5 days. Make sure to store frosted cake in the refrigerator always.
Looks delicious!
Hi Nags,
Can I bake this cake in a pressure cooker? Will it turn out to be the same? I have tried your cooker cake recipes n it was awesome. Planning to make this cake but I dont own an oven or microwave.
I haven’t tried this in a pressure cooker but definitely worth a shot. Do let me know if you do 🙂
Hi.. Ur lemon cake looks a real ‘diva’! Ur pics r awesome. Tried this cake today. Loved it . Soft n the lemony tang is great. Really flavourful. My glaze curdled a lil coz of the lemon juice n milk I guess.. It still tastes yumm though it doesn’t luk the perfection ur cake does..Any remedies for next tym? Thank u for all these superb recipes.
nice cake
Hi… today i have tried this eggless cake flax seeds replaced by milkmade and its taste was awesome..but it became hard and black from the top can u tell me what is the fault? not only this time like every time it happens to me same please clarify this. and any tips for this.
I tried this recipe today.. it turned out awesome… 🙂 just one small doubt, my cake was still moist in the centre, any tips for this error?
bake a bit longer
Hi Lakshmi….
I made the cake yesterday for my husband birthday,but I did a slight changes,instead of lemon I used Orange and used condensed milk instead of flax seeds.It came out really well and my hus..loved it..:-)))) so happy thought of telling you " A Big Thank you " for ur Motivational Receipes…
Thank you for the kind words Reka
Hi Nag's..
instead of Flax seed, can we use Egg replacer….reply me asap..tomo i am going to do it..
Yes sure you can use egg replacer to make this lemon cake recipe
Thanks!!
Hi, I live in India and we only get lime her not lemons. Do you think this cake would taste good with lime?
There's only one way to find out. Try it! 🙂
Nags, I loved the idea of pouring the glaze on the top becuz I don't like thick creamy frosting. It just turns me off. But I got confused, abt the measure of butter…1/4 is what? a cup or something…how much in gms? is it normal white butter?
Can I use this glaze (sans lemon) on other cakes too?
-Rashmi
oops sorry! it's meant to be 1/4 cup butter 🙂 and yes, you can use this glaze for any cake.
Nagalakshmi, I have a complaint against you. After reading your recipe which is supposed to be for first-timer. I had put it in my todo list, yesterday I took it to make a cake. But instead of lemon cake it turned out to be lemon idli. I think i hit the first button which I saw on my oven it was microwave.
In your recipe you have not mention how to bake the cake which mode to use microwave, grill, convection or combo of these and to bake at what temperature.
To give you context I am a man, never have put my foot in kitchen for cooking, if you give me flour and baking powder I won't be able to tell which is which.
Anyways only thing I love about my cake is the glaze it's sweet and finger licking good.
Oops! When I say baking, I mean baking in a conventional oven. If you use a microwave, it's understood you need to use the convection mode. I don't use a MW so not sure of the settings.
If i dnt hv flaxseed, is thr some othr alternate to eggs.
Too desperate to try this one.
You can also replace one egg with 1/4 cup plain yogurt. I haven’t tried this in this lemon cake recipe but worth a shot.
The cake was yum
That cake looks so moist and delicious…I think I will make it right away!
yumm is the word comes to my mind when i see your cake
That tasted so awesome in every single bite. Beautiful clicks
I wasn't a big fan of lemony bakes too but been wanting to try out the latest Masterchef recipe Lemon Syrup cake,I guess I can adapt this recipe to make the same.Definitely bookmarked.
wow that's looks super tempting …lovely pics
Indu is right. How do you do it Nags! You are a true inspiration !Love the clicks.
What size of baking pan did you use?
Thank you
Divya
an 8" round springform pan
Nags…The second click with the glaze almost made me feel like licking my screen…LOL!
I have been asked for eggless cake recipes a lot but I have tried just 1 or 2. This sounds awesome…bookmarked 🙂
Nags, my sticky lemon cake was inspired by Julia of the Season 4. 🙂 Yours looks extremely beautiful!
You are on a roll ! I love lemony desserts, way more than the chocolatey ones. This looks soft and yum, definitely on my to-do list
Just wanna grab it right from the pic….delicious and tempting!
Wow…..I feel like eating it right from the piccy 😛 🙂
Nags u rock.. with new recipes almost everyday…i wonder how you get time for all these..
I have too many pics and recipes sitting ready to be posted so want to catch up 🙂
Looks yum! I have had a sad experience with a lemon cake what with the glaze turning super sour and in my excitement I had poured it over the whole cake more or less soaking it and it was pretty much inedible 😛 So I am gonna skip the glaze and just do the cake using this recipe. Does the zest alone in the cake batter impart enough lemony flavor? Also, how did it taste with the chocolate frosting? Never had a lemon-chocolate combo so would like to try that too if you recommend 🙂
Thanks!
Sajitha, i can totally imagine! what i would recommend is to add the zest in the cake and also make this glaze but omit the lemon juice and add zest in that too. that way it's much milder yet lemony. i would suggest using the glaze because without that the cake is a bit plain. the cake is only mildly lemony with the amount of lemon zest i used (but julia's masterchef cupcake recipes had no zest in the cake!).
chocolate and lemon go well together, and i really liked that version too. i just put half a cup of choc chips on the cake as soon as it came out of the oven and spread it on top as it melted. yum!
Thanks for the detailed response, Nags! I'm definitely going to bake this for my mom with lemon glaze (she hates chocolate flavors, but that being a hit with everyone else in the family, she ends up never having more than a teeny tiny bit. This one's going to be for her exclusively 🙂 )