Glazed Lemon Bundt Cake With Buttermilk
Having company you want to impress? You must make this lemon bundt cake! It’s the ultimate tender, moist, and fluffy cake that will have your guests wondering if you really got it from a bakery and threw out the box. It’s made with fresh lemon zest and gets a boost of flavor from lemon extract too. Make a quick and easy lemon glaze to drizzle on top, and be prepared to be asked for the recipe!
I stand by all my recipes but this one- this is one I am super proud of.
Sometimes (SO MANY TIMES) I have made other bundt cakes or was excited to dig into one- only to find out it was dense, dry, and lacked a fork tender bite. The disappointment was real.
Which is why I was on a mission to never make one like that ever again. With this bundt cake recipe I never will and neither will you. This lemon bundt is based off my 5x recipe tested vanilla bundt cake recipe which is where it all started. Once I got that nailed down, I was free to move on to other similar flavors.
Creamed butter and sugar create an airy base for the cake making it light and fluffy. Adding in the oil to tenderize the crumb, along with buttermilk to keep it moist for longer- this cake is basically a super star and gets an A++ all around.
As a professional baker I have made hundreds of homemade cake recipes. This is one I make on rotation because it always turns out perfectly. If you’re looking for a short cut though, try this lemon pudding bundt cake-it has over 100, 5 star reviews!
Fun fact if you want to make this fruitier you can make this lemon blueberry bundt cake or lemon raspberry bundt cake.
So excited to share this recipe with you, I know you’re gonna love it as much as we do!
It even impressed my mother in law. (mic drop).
Spray your bundt pan
Before we get into the how, we need to talk about prepping your bundt pan to make sure that it releases well. This is what works for me- what I do is basically spray the crap out of my bundt pan with a baking spray that has flour in it until theres a visible layer on it, in every nook and cranny.
This is not a place to take shortcuts. If you don’t have baking spray with flour or no baking spray at all, then brush softened butter all over the pan and dust it with flour. This isnt foolproof but its your next best option.
It will also be harder to get the cake out clean if the pan has an intricate design, mine doesnt, its a basic shape from Nordicware and I never have issues with it.
Ingredient mentions
Unsalted butter– make sure your butter is at room temperature so that it creams well with the sugar. If its too cold it wont cream nicely and create the airiness the batter needs to be fluffy.
Lemon zest– This really ups the flavor so dont skip it! Also seeing the yellow flakes in the batter makes it feel more special and cozy.
Lemon extract– yes to this instead of juice. Lemon extract is concentrated flavor so it packs so much more punch then juice, theres just no comparison. No amount of lemon juice here could be added to substitute for the flavor, you would need so much that it would change the recipe. This isnt because I use a lot of extract in the batter, its more so that lemon juice isnt powerful enough.
How to make the cake
Cooling the cake
Let the cake cool for only 15 minutes in the bundt pan when you take it out of the oven, then invert it and let it fall out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
You only want to let it cool for 15 minutes because as the cake cools the sugar in the cake can stick or rather, glue itself to the sides of the pan making it much harder for it to come out.
You also dont want to invert it right away because it would be too hot and would fall apart. 15 minutes is the sweet spot.
When the cake is completely cool, make this simple lemon glaze and drizzle on top! Garnish with some more lemon zest if you have it to add more flavor and up the pretty factor.
If you do have any cracks in your cake, just be strategic about where you drizzle the glaze and nobody needs to know.
Glazed Lemon Bundt Cake with Buttermilk
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, (227g)
- 2 cups sugar, (400g)
- Zest of 2 lemons
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 3 eggs large, room temperature
- 2 ¾ cup all purpose flour, 330g
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- ¾ cup buttermilk, room temperature
- 1 tsp lemon extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Heavily spray a 10 cup bundt pan with baking spray.
- In the bowl of a hand or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add the 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, and zest from 2 lemons, and mix on low-medium speed for 2 minutes.
- Add the ¼ cup vegetable oil and mix again until combined. Add the eggs one at a time on medium speed, mixing in between.
- In a separate bowl combine the 2 ¾ cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, and ½ tsp kosher salt and mix lightly.
- In a measuring cup add the buttermilk and lemon extract.
- Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients by thirds starting and ending with the dry ingredients.
- Pour the batter into the prepared bundt cake pan.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the cake is set and the sides are pulling away from the pan.
- Cool for 15 minutes, then flip the cake over a cooling rack to release and cool completely.
- One completely cool, drizzle with lemon glaze.
