Glazed lemon loaf is what you make when you’re after something not too sweet that’s fuss-free to make. Lovely bright lemon flavour with buttery undertones, it’s a quick bread which means no yeast and easy to make. Excellent shelf life of 5 days!
Glazed lemon loaf ready to be served
Glazed lemon loaf
Quick breads are a great option for those times when you have the urge or need to bake, but don’t have the time for more involved recipes. They’re also convenient – easy to transport and easy to serve. Slice like bread and eat on a napkin!
As for today’s lemon glazed loaf, it’s here after I responded to a question on Facebook for how to convert my simple Lemon Yogurt Cake into a loaf. “Use the recipe as is but I’d switch half the oil with melted butter to get buttery flavour into it, because it’ll be taller than the cake so there’s less frosting-to-cake ratio so you’ll want the cake to have more flavour. I’d probably dial up the lemon flavour for the same reason. And it will take longer to bake – just keep testing with a skewer!”
By the time I got to the end of the response, the “just do this” suddenly seemed a little less simple. So I decided to create and properly test it, write it up and publish it! 😂
Glaze on Glazed lemon loaf
Ingredients in Glazed Lemon Loaf
Here’s what you need to make this. Note: Lemon extract is recommended for really good lemon flavour, but you can get away with doubling the zest instead!
Yogurt – A “secret ingredient” in baking to make batters that bake up into lovely moist cakes, muffins etc. Any plain, unsweetened yogurt is fine here. I typically use Greek Yogurt. Substitute with sour cream (full fat).
Flour – Just plain / all purpose flour. Self-rising flour can be used in place of flour and baking powder, however, the loaf won’t be quite as soft or rise as well. Baking powder + flour is just more effective. 🙂
Gluten-free – I have not tried myself but reader Julie reported great success using gluten free flour! See her comment on this recipe dated 12 June 2023.
Baking powder – This makes this loaf rise.
Butter AND oil – Butter adds lovely buttery flavour into baked goods while oil makes the crumb moist. In this particular loaf, I wanted the best of both worlds so we’re using both.
In most recipes, I use one or the other – or I use butter plus another technique to keep the crumb moist (like the more involved technique for the reader-favourite plush Vanilla Cake).
Oil types – Vegetable or canola oil, or any other plain flavoured oil (such as sunflower, grapeseed oil) can be used. For the butter, use unsalted.
Fresh lemon – Fresh please! We need the zest and juice. Zest is where all the lemon flavour is! Juice provides mostly tang, not much lemon flavour.
Lemon extract (natural) – To make the lemon flavour in this un-missable. It really does enhance the lemon flavour in a way that you can’t achieve using just fresh lemons. But if you’ve got a stack of fresh lemons, feel free to skip this and double up on zest instead.
Vanilla – For flavour. I use vanilla extract here which is real vanilla flavour. Vanilla essence is artificial so the flavour is not as good. I typically only use pricier vanilla bean paste or vanilla beans for more refined dessert recipes, such as Creme Brûlée and Flan Pâtissier (the world’s greatest Custard Tart!)
Sugar – Just 1 cup which makes this loaf on the less-sweet side.
Eggs – At room temperature, so they incorporate easily into the batter. I use large eggs which are ~55g / 2 oz each, an industry standard so the eggs will be labelled “large eggs” on the carton. More on eggs for baking here.
Salt – Just a touch, to bring out the flavours. This is good general practice for all (well, most!) sweet baking recipes.
Lemon glaze
For the glaze, you just need soft icing sugar / powdered sugar and lemon juice. Australia – be sure to use soft icing sugar, not pure icing sugar which will set into a hard icing, like royal icing.
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