If you are looking for a bundt cake to have an afternoon tea or just enjoy a small celebration at home, you found the right one. This Meyer Lemon Bundt Cake hits the right spot. I’m obsessed with Meyer lemons lately and I love how this cake came out. It’s light with notes of citrus and flowers!
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Why Meyer Lemons?
Well, if you have never seen them, Meyer Lemons look like regular lemons. They’re a bit more round and have a deeper yellow skin color. Skin is also a bit smoother than regular lemons.
However, the quality that I love the most is the taste. Because the way they were created as a hybrid between lemons and mandarins, Meyer lemons tend to be a little less acidic and a bit sweeter than regular lemons. This makes them the best candidates in my opinion for these lemons to be used in cakes, drinks etc.
When using regular lemons, one tends to add more sugar to balance out the acidity. However, with Meyer lemons you can lower the amount of sugar you use in your bundt cake and you won’t feel it. Less sugar = less carbs, so you can have a bigger slice of cake :))
Recipe Notes & Tips
This is a very easy cake to make, if you remember few basics you can even do it without looking at the recipe and just eyeballing ingredients as you mix. I also love making bundt cakes so you might want to check out this Orange Bundt Cake too.
Here’s a picture of most ingredients I used to make the cake.
Start by beating with a hand held mixer, granulated sugar and butter until the mix becomes creamy and smooth. Add vanilla extract. Continue by adding the eggs one by one. This is usually when my kids love to help. Each takes turns holding the mixer or one helps with the eggs and the other with mixing.
Mix dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder and salt) and set the dry mix aside. Alternate by adding the dry ingredients and heavy cream to the batter mix while mixing.
Finally squeeze enough lemons to have about ⅓ cup of fresh lemon juice (about 2-3 lemons).
Add that to the batter and continue mixing until smooth. Zest lemon skins until you have about 2 tablespoons of lemon zest. Add the lemon zest to batter and give it a final mix.
Grease bundt cake pan with butter and dust with flour. In the meantime, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (rounded up to 180 degree Celsius).
Pour batter on the bundt cake pan. Please note that batter is very thick.
Bake for about 50 minutes or until if you insert a tooth pick inside the cake it comes out clean. The baking time can vary a bit by oven so start really paying attention to the cake around 40 minutes or so.
Let the cake cool for 15 minutes or so inside the pan, then flip onto a serving platter. While the cake is cooling off you can prepare the glaze.
If you make the glaze a bit on the thinner side, it will get absorbed by the cake. If you make it thicker, it will stick on top of the cake like icing until it dries off. So feel free to make the glaze runny or thicker as you prefer.
Substitutions and Variations
I would like to give you few additional options to the below recipe card. You can replace some ingredients or make the cake differently to fit what you have available.
- You can replace heavy cream with milk or buttercream.
- You can add zest over glaze as garnish as seen at the end of the video.
- You can add walnuts to this cake.
- You can make this cake in a loaf pan instead of bundt mold.
- Finally, I wrap the cake in plastic wrap for room temperature for about a day. Then I refrigerate if there are still leftovers. I haven’t tried freezing because there are never that many leftovers.
Also, I would like to make a point that in the Mediterranean we make lemon and orange cakes and usually we pour sweet syrup over them. I’ll make another recipe with syrup to share with you all, but this time I made the cake with glaze like it’s more common here in Florida where I live now.
The first time I made the cake, I used a thinner icing like seen above. This last time I made the cake, I made a thick glaze because I wanted it to look pretty for an event at a friend’s house where I was taking the cake to.
See below how the cake looks with thick icing.
Meyer Lemon Bundt Cake
Equipment
- Hand Held Mixer
- Bundt cake pan
- Medium mixing bowl
Ingredients
Cake Batter
- 3 Meyer lemons zest then squeeze the lemons, you'll need ⅓ cup juice for batter and 2 tbsps juice for glaze. While for zest I usually do 1 tbsp zest for batter and 1 tbsp zest for glaze.
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 8 tbsps unsalted butter 1 stick butter or 113 grams
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 5 eggs
- 1 cup heavy cream
Cake Glaze
- 3 tbsps milk 3 tbsps milk leads to a thick glaze while ¼ cup of milk will make a thin glaze so that's the range you're looking at.
- 2 cup confectioner's sugar used for the glaze
- 2 tbsps Meyer Lemons juice
Instructions
Cake Batter
- Squeeze 3 Meyer lemons. Fill ⅓ cup with lemon juice and separate 2 tbsps of juice for glazing later. Zest until you get 2 tbsps of lemon zest, you'll use 1 tbsp zest in cake batter and 1 tbsp zest in glaze for garnish.
- Mix dry ingredients together, 3 cups of all purpose flour, 1 tbsp baking powder and pinch salt. Set this dry mix aside.
- Start by mixing butter (room temperature) with sugar until creamy. Add vanilla extract. Lower speed of the mixer and start adding eggs one by one, continue mixing.
- Once all eggs are incorporated, then add ⅓ cup Meyer lemon juice. Mix well.
- Add dry ingredients slowly as you continue to mix. Alternate adding dry mix with heavy cream until everything is incorporated. Finally add 1 tbsp of lemon zest. It's important to continue mixing throughout the process as you add ingredients, use a spatula to scrape sides in. I find it easier if I prep all ingredients (juice, zest, dry ingredients etc) in front of me so I can just add with my left hand as I hold the mixer with my right.
- Grease the baking pan with butter and dust with some flour. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (approx. 180 degrees Celsius) .
- Pour batter on the pan, this batter is kind of thick. Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes. I use the middle rack in my oven. I tend to rotate once around the 30 minutes mark because the back of my oven heats a little more than the front. By rotating once I try to ensure even baking. Test with a toothpick around 50 minutes to see if it comes out dry.
- Remove pan from oven (turn oven off:)), let cool for about 15 minutes then flip on a cooling rack or serving platter. If it doesn't flip easily, I use a knife to separate the edges slightly from pan then try to flip again. Usually I prepare the glaze while cake is cooling off.
Glaze
- Using hand held mixer, mix together confectioner's sugar with milk and 2 tbsps of Meyer Lemons juice until glaze is smooth, about 1 minute or so. I let it chill in the refrigerator if the cake is not ready for glazing yet. Use less milk for a thicker glaze. Add milk slowly. Usually I do 3 tbsps milk and 2 tbsps lemon juice with 2 cups of powdered sugar. If wanting a thinner glaze then increase qty of milk.
- Pour over cake as desired and let cake soak it in. Usually I'll pour about ¾ of the glaze right away but once it has absorbed part of it, then I'll pour the last part right before serving the cake. Garnish with the 1 tbsp of lemon zest you reserved earlier.Please note that if you want a thicker glaze, then increase the amount of powdered sugar used.
Video
Notes
- Calories are estimated. Also note that you might not eat all of the glaze as some of it runs down to the platter so there’s some wiggling room there in order to lower calories.
- Please note that lemons can be different sizes or contain different amounts of juice. I tend to use 3 lemons to ensure I have enough lemon juice (⅓ cup for batter and 2 tbsps for glaze) but because of their size you might need to use more lemons.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
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Deborah
This lemon cake looks delicious. Thanks for sharing!
Sonila
I appreciate that Deborah, thank you:)
Enriqueta E Lemoine
Soni you need more than five stars! This lemon Mayer poundcake looks so yummy. Your pics are amazing. Did I tell you that I used to have a Meyer Lemon tree while living in CA?
admin
I’m so jealous of your lemon tree!! And I thank you so much for the encouragement & support. You really are amazing!! Gracias 😘
Mary
I must confess I’m not a cake fan, but this Meyer Lemon Bundt Cake looks sooo delicious, I will try this soon. Thanks for sharing!!!
Silvia Martinez
Wow! Always delicious, meyer lemon is a gift from God, I love them so much, they have such a strong and fruty flavor that can bright almost any recipe, this meyer lemon bundt cake is not exception!
admin
Thank you so much Silvia:))).
Carlos Wollenstein
Qué rico se ve!!! Meyer lemon cake + café… esposo feliz!!!
admin
Siiii Carlos, mi esposo estaba muy feliz con este lemon cake:)). Lo hize el cake por nuestro aniversario. Gracias
María
This Meyer Lemon Cake couldn’t be more spectacular! I love the taste of lemon and the glaze is delicious.
admin
Thank you so much Maria:))