Lemon Olive Oil Cake
The softest, fluffiest cake that bursts with the flavor of lovely lemon. This cake, made with olive oil which keeps it moist for days, uses lemon zest and freshly squeezed lemon juice in the cake. It also gets an extra boost of tart lemon from a lemon soak poured over the cake after baking.
Oh goodness, it’s been awhile since I’ve made a cake this fluffy, this moist and after leaving it unattended and uncovered (sliced!) while I took the kids to a birthday party, I came home and it was just as fluffy and soft as when I left. Witchcraft! You absolutely must make this cake.
Recipe origins
This recipe’s cake mama is this mint lemon olive oil cake. I swapped out the mint, added more flour but opted for cake flour for an even fluffier and tendermore texture, added more lemon juice and thus had to adjust the leavening. I also gave it a lemon soak, for maximum lemon flavor =)
Recipe Ingredients
Olive oil: choose this very wisely, as if you have a strong flavored olive oil (especially extra virgin) the flavor will come through. I loved the strong evoo combination with the lemon so that’s what I used. If you don’t want any olive flavor use something flavorless.
Lemons: if your lemons are not organic, wash and rub the outside to remove the outer wax coating before you zest them. Zest them then juice.
Sugar: fine granulated. Reducing the sugar will compromise the ‘moisture’ level of the cake.
Cake flour: cake flour is milled finer and has added starch. It makes for a very tender cake. If you don’t have it you can use all purpose and swap 2 tablespoons of the flour for corn or tapioca starch.
Baking powder & soda: leavening for the cake. Check the expiration dates on the containers!
Kefir or buttermilk: Please don’t diy the buttermilk with milk & lemon/vinegar! It’s really never the same. If you have neither kefir or buttermilk, thin out some greek yogurt with water to make it pourable.
Eggs: two large eggs. Set them in a bowl of warm water to bring them to room temperature.
Salt & vanilla: fine sea salt and pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste. Those little specks in my cake are from my vanilla.
How to make Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Prep the pan: use a tall (3 inch high) round 8 inch cake pan. You can also use a 9 inch (2 inch high), the cake will likely be done a bit earlier. Brush the pan all over with butter then coat it with flour. Alternatively, use a baking spray.
Zest the lemons and rub into the sugar: this releases the oils from the zest to bring out their flavor.
Beat the sugar & eggs: Once the eggs go into the bowl on the sugar, immediately start beating. If you leave eggs in sugar without mixing them, the sugar will ‘cook’ the eggs.
Beat the sugar & eggs until very, very light and fluffy. You’ll see the color change from yellow to a very pale yellow. Add the salt and vanilla as you beat.
TIP: If using a stand mixer, scrape the bottom and sides every now and then to ensure even mixing.
Slowly beat in the oil: With the mixer on, slowly pour in the olive oil to allow it to emulsify. If you dump it all in at once the oil will stay separate from the sugar/eggs.
Sift in the flour & leavening: this will get rid of any flour lumps (common with cake flour) and will make it much easier for the flour to blend into the light mix, that way we avoid having to over mix the batter.
With the mixer on, add the buttermilk and lemon juice: once the flour is halfway mixed, keep the mixer on and slowly pour the buttermilk in then the lemon juice. Mix and stop as soon as everything looks well blended. Pour into the pan.
Bake until the cake tester comes out clean (I tend to test my cakes by pressing the top to see if it springs back).
Make the soak and pour over the cake: add the sugar and lemon juice to a small pot and set over medium heat. The mix doesn’t need to boil but the sugar should be fully dissolved.
Out of the oven, poke holes into the cake then pour the syrup over it. In the video you’ll see I turned the cake onto a plate and then poured the soak: this just made for a mess as I got a ton of syrup running off the cake onto the plate. Keep it in the pan!
The cake will be sticky from the syrup so you can opt to keep it in the pan or quickly turn it out onto a plate.
How to store the cake
It stays unbearably moist and soft for days – especially if kept in an airtight container, at room temperature.
Can I use a different citrus to make this?
Every citrus has a different acidity level, lemons have a high pH (1.3 times meyer lemons for example) compared to oranges and other citrus fruits. This is important to consider because the lemon juice in the cake is balanced against the leavening so if you use something less acidic, there’s a good chance the cake won’t rise as it should.
Lemon Olive Oil Cake Recipe
Lemon Olive Oil Cake | Buttermilk by Sam
Ingredients
Lemon Cake
- Zest of 3-4 lemons organic or washed and rubbed to remove the wax
- 200 g or 1 cup fine granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 145 g or ⅔ cup olive oil use an oil you like the taste of, it comes through in the cake!
- 225 g or 1 ¾ cups cake flour if using cups fluff the flour in it’s container then sprinkle it over the measuring cup and level the cup
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 195 g or ¾ cups kefir or buttermilk
- 60 g or ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Lemon Soak
- 120 g or ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 100 g or ½ cup granulated sugar
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour an 8 inch round cake pan that is 3 inches high.
- Set the sugar in a large bowl and zest the lemons over it. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers until it’s all worked in and the sugar is fragrant with the lemon oil.
- Crack the eggs into the sugar and use a hand mixer or a stand mixer to beat until light and fluffy, the color will change to very pale. Add the vanilla and salt as it beats.
- Once its pale, keep the mixer on and slowly pour in the olive oil. Beat until fully combined.
- Over the batter, sift in the cake flour. Add the baking powder and soda. Turn the mixer on and beat - once half of the flour is combined into the batter, keep the mixer on and slowly pour in the buttermilk and then the lemon juice. Stop as soon as all the ingredients are combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Out of the oven, make the soak:
- In a small pot, set the sugar and lemon juice over medium heat. Once the sugar has fully dissolved, take it off the heat.
- With the cake still in the pan, use a cake tester or a skewer and poke holes all over the cake. Pour the soak all over, ensuring to get an even coat everywhere (much of it will run over to the sides so focus on getting enough in the center). Let the cake cool then serve.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container. Cake will keep for 2-3 days and stays nicely moist.
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Meyer lemons are such a treat to have. I was given a large bag of them and used those instead of the Lisbon lemons from my tree. First time making this cake. I had to bake it in a springform pan as that was all I had. I weighed out all my ingredients and baked it for 40 minutes. It is so delicious. Next time I may keep it in the oven a few minutes longer to brown the top a little more. Such a simple cake with a big taste.
Easy to whip up and so tasty! I am a sucker for lemon-poppyseed so I added ~1/2 a cup of poppyseeds (I soaked them in the buttermilk). Definitely a recipe to return to over and over!
Unfortunately, this recipe was disastrous on my end, and it was the first cake I had to bin in my life. Following the metric measurements did not work out at all, the cake was way too dense and completely fell together after baking properly all the way through. It turned from a nice lemon cake into a flat, fatty, oily mess over night. Offering liquids in grams instead of mililiters should have been the red flag to avoid, I hope the American measurements work for the rest of you.
Hi Terry, sounds like something went wrong and it likely had to do with the way ingredients were measured. Weighing by mass (grams) is more accurate than using milliliters: Grams are weight, milliliters are volume, similar to measuring dry ingredients with dry cups. Here’s a helpful article.
Perfect recipe. Huge hit. So delicious.
I made this cake yesterday, though I use half recipe to fit my smaller pan. Anyway I hope you can help me troubleshoot things.
1. after I add the lemon juice at the very end, my cake batter suddenly bubbling and rising. Is this normal?
2. I’m using electric oven where I can choose top or bottom heat. So usually I set only the bottom heat and change to top-bottom at the last 10 minutes or else the cake wont rise. But here I can see the browning on top of your cake, while mine doesnt. Am I supposed to bake with top and bottom heat or is it just my faulty oven?
3. If I’m correct you should pour the lemon syrup right after it came out of the oven? I did poke holes in my cake but what happened is it only penetrated 1-1.5 cm (or half an inch) from the cake top. Is this sugar syrup supposed to coat all layer from top to bottom or not? Note my cake is about 2 inch high.
4. I’ve tried using cake flour and my cake turns out really crumbly so I change it to AP flour and it came out moist and can hold it structure. Also it came out just like your cake in the photo.
I really love this recipe, the lemon, olive, and vanilla really shines through but I think I need to tweak this to fit my baking equipment haha. I hope you read this comment!
Hi Dilla! re #1: this is the acid in the lemon reacting with the baking soda, it’s normal. re #2: it sounds like something is off with the oven, a cake should rise without you having to move it from one rack to another. Browning can be impacted by how close the bake is to the heat source but also by what kind of pan material is used (eg. a darker metal pan will brown things quicker). re #3: depending on how big the holes are the syrup can go deeper into the cake (a bigger hole will mean the syrup goes down). Using a toothpick of cake tester, most of the syrup concentrates at the top, sides and bottom – this is normal. re #4: If I understood correctly, you made the cake twice and tested both flours? I don’t think cake flour can make something crumbly but it does make for a much more tender, softer cake crumb so something could have gone off in your first bake with the cake flour. All purpose will always have better ‘structure’ but won’t give as fine of a crumb as cake flour.
This was delicious! I’ve made it 2 times now. The first time I followed the recipe exactly and did find it a little tart, but it was still good. My family enjoyed it. The second time I sub’d half the lemon rind with orange rind and half the lemon juice with orange juice (fresh squeezed from the oranges I used for the rind). This cut back on the tartness and gave it a slight twist in flavor. Both were delicious and incredibly moist. I just wanted to share the orange twist as an option for anyone concerned about the tartness. I took the 2nd one to work and it got really great reviews and I was even asked to make it again soon. This is just a really really good recipe! Thank you for posting.
Overall a very easy and tasty recipe but very tart IMO and I love lemon! Also even at 40 minutes a small section in the middle stayed uncooked. I ended up leaving it in the oven (turned off) for at least 10 more minutes just to firm it up a little bit. I dusted the top with powdered sugar to cut the tartness.
Can i use a bundt pan?
I love this recipe!!! So easy and quick to whip up and you end up with the most delicious lemon cake! Through some baking magic kefir, olive oil and lemon juice make the very best cake imaginable, so tart and moist and beautiful. Just a stunning recipe that I will keep close and make again and again!
Oh I’m so happy to hear this. Love that it will become a repeat in your home =)
This recipe was such a huge hit with the family!! I used kefir and a high quality lemon infused olive oil and it was maybe the most delicious cake I’ve ever made. 10/10
lemon infused olive oil sounds wonderful here!
Very lemony and moist. I will be making this again.
This cake was absolutely delicious! Soooo lemony. I love how the recipe uses cake flour, kefir and I decided to get some lemon infused olive oil while really took this cake to the next level. Also, the lemon soak!!! Brilliant. I served it with a homemade blueberry compote and some vanilla ice cream. Unreal. Made it for my partners moms birthday and people were fighting over the leftover pieces! Will definitely make this again.
I love how easy this recipe is and how amazing it smells!! I did have to cook mine well over the time suggested, not quite sure why as my oven is generally spot on. My cake also didn’t brown like your photos- but I can’t tell if yours is turned out and left that way or turned out and flipped back over. Either way, I’m excited to try it! Thank you!
Excellent cake. I had someone who kinda-like cake rave over it. I added a lemon curd whipped cream which really topped it off. I’d be interested in adding a blueberry topping or mint for some contrast. Thanks!
this with lemon curd whipped cream sounds like my idea of heaven!
This cake is phenomenal! I made it on a Thursday and the last piece wasn’t eaten until Tuesday and it was just as good as the first day. My neighbor has a lemon tree so I will make this often. One word of caution- if you are using an inexpensive aluminum springform pan (it was the only 8” pan I had with 3” high sides) the acidity from the lemons will darken the aluminum. It didn’t transfer any color to the cake, but now the pan just looks odd. Still usable, but I will be looking for a higher quality springform pan!
I made this cake for Easter dinner and everyone loved it. Very moist and flavourful. Even my baba, who normally doesn’t eat much, finished a whole piece. I added the glaze from your lemon brownie recipe. It was perfect!
Delicious cake!!! So flavorful, light, and moist! I didn’t have cake flour but read you can replace it with 2T corn starch per 1C AP flour and that worked very well. Added in a bit of orange zest and 1/2tsp almond extract bc I like to add my own flare into a recipe 🙂 Ratios were great for this cake because I tried another recipe for lemon olive oil cake and it ended up being way too heavy and dense, not this one!! Thanks so much for a great recipe, Sam!
Found cake flour online for a reasonable price and decided to test it out with this recipe. Only made one alteration: I halved the recipe and used a 6-inch springform pan. Fantastic! Real lemon flavor, creamy but still crumby (in the good sense), moist, not too dense. I made and used the lemon syrup, but I didn’t drench it. Love this cake.
This cake was everything!! Tart, soft, moist and delicious!
Wow, this is SOOOOO good! Literally the best lemon cake (or any cake for that matter) that I have ever tasted! I made the cake itself as written, with the exception of swapping out half the olive oil for a vegetable or canola oil, as I didn’t have much olive oil left. I baked it in a square 8×8 pan, as I wanted more of a grab and go snack cake thang with square pieces. 30 minutes was exactly right, and once I took it out I started on the simple syrup. In the past I’ve always had trouble with lemon cakes tasting weak, but the simple syrup just elevated the flavor to the extreme! Once it was done, I poked holes in the cake and poured the syrup over. This is where I went off from the original recipe- I poked bigger holes, much like you would for a normal poke cake, before pouring the syrup on. Once it had soaked in and the cake was completely cooled, I whipped up 1 cup of heavy cream with 1/4 cup sugar, a bit of lemon zest, and a small dash of lemon extract. I spread it over the cake, cut into squares, and served. It was instantly accompanied with oohs and aahs from everyone! It was so soft and fluffy- the perfect light spring dessert. The lemon flavor was so strong, and the beautiful cake accompanied with the silky lemon whipped cream was just amazing! I cannot recommend this cake enough. I would say that if I wanted something super fast, I would make the recipe as written; if I wanted something a bit more time intensive but with a great reward I would make the whipped cream for on top; if I wanted something absolutely fantastic I would poke the bigger holes, spread a bit of lemon curd over the top so it got down in, make the lemon whipped cream, and swirl the extra curd on top. Either way, and whatever you choose, this is just SUCH a fantastic cake and I literally cannot wait to make it (and eat it) again!
OMG I made this for a friend’s birthday and they absolutely loved it! It was relatively easy to put together and soooooo lemony. I just took a bite and I can still feel the tangyness on my tongue. Also I halved the amount of lemon soak since I only had 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice. I also added a bit of almond extract to the lemon soak!
side note – I almost never make recipes with no reviews, but looking at the ingredient list and knowing it was THE buttermilkbysam gave me confidence. thanks so much!!