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Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Everyone needs a vibrant, light, fluffy, moist lemon cake recipe up their sleeves. Easter is coming up and it wouldn’t be complete for me without a beautiful, seasonal lemon cake. My Grandma Faye loved all things lemon so it was essential at our Easter Sunday dinner. Her recipe, albeit wonderful, uses a cake mix and I wanted to create one from scratch. You can’t beat homemade!
Back in the day when I was competing in recipe contests, I found a contest where the grand prize was a trip to Italy! It had been at the top of my bucket list for years. I went straight to the kitchen and went to work! It was for Bertolli olive oil and since I assumed most people would go the savory route, I went to dessert. I wanted to create an Italian Lemon Cake using olive oil, reminiscent of the Tuscany countryside.
The result was a melt-in-your-mouth lemon cake that was not only super tender, fluffy, and moist but had a heavenly fresh lemon flavor as well.
This Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake is the perfect lemon cake.
The frosting can make or break a cake. So many of the frosting found on bakery cakes are overly sweet. This lemon vanilla cream cheese frosting uses butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and grated lemon zest.
This creamy, silky frosting is the most ideal accompaniment to this fabulous Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake. A zester makes it much easier to remove only the best parts of the lemon.
This cake does call for olive oil and the wonderful thing is that you can use canola, vegetable, or coconut oil as well. I have made this cake many, many times and have used both canola oil and coconut oil with much success. You can even use coconut oil and top the cake with coconut flakes.
My favorite cake pan is this one from USA Pan Bakeware Round Cake Pan, 8 inch. My favorite tool to use to frost a cake is definitely this Wilton angled spatula.
Click HERE to find all of my favorite essential kitchen products in one place.
If you love cake, here are some of the most popular cake recipes:
- Love at First Sight Chocolate Cake
- Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
- Orange Cake
- Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Lemon Olive Oil Cake
- Southern Caramel Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting
- Coconut Cake
- Vanilla White Texas Sheet Cake
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Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake:
- 1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil or Canola Oil
- 3 Eggs
- 1 1/3 cup Whole Milk
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice
- 2 Tablespoons Fresh Lemon Zest
- 2 Cups Sugar
- 2 Cups Flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Salt
Filling:
- 1 cup Lemon Curd
Lemon Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 1/2 cup Butter softened
- 1 - 8 ounce package Cream Cheese softened
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar may need 1/4 cup more depending on consistency
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice
- 1/2 teaspoon Lemon Zest plus more for garnish
- 1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla or Vanilla Beans optional
Garnish:
- Lemon Zest
- Blackberries
- Mint
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, add oil, eggs, whole milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Cream for 2 minutes. In large bowl, add sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into egg mixture and fold. Spray two 9-inch or three 8-inch cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Place batter into baking pans. If using three 8-inch pans, bake for 20-26 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. If using two 9-inch pans, bake for 30-36 minutes. Cool.
To make frosting:
- In a large bowl, cream together butter and cream cheese for 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy, scraping sides of bowl often. Add powdered sugar, lemon juice, vanilla and lemon zest and cream together. Chill.
To assemble cake:
- Remove cakes from pan. Spread frosting on top of one cooled cake layer. Place other cooled cake layer on top and spread frosting all over. Garnish with lemon zest and fresh blackberries.
- Optional: Spread lemon curd on first cake layer and then top with frosting.
- Let chill for 20-30 minutes to let the frosting set up.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I can’t wait to hear what you think of this Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake. Find me on Instagram at @modern_honey.
Hi, Do u use cake flour or all purpose flour?
I used cake flour and it was really good
How much cake flour did you use?
I can’t wait to make it. The picture looks so yummy. Can I make it in a 9 X 13 pan?
Hi:
My family loves “lemon poppy seed” cakes and muffins. How much poppy seed should I add? I am very excited to try this recipe????????????
Please advise. Thank you very much,
Bunny
Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe! Made it last year for my son’s birthday and am about to make again for this year’s birthday. He requested lemon cake again. We all enjoyed eating the cupcakes, and I’m definitely looking forward to some more very soon! Thanks again
Your beautiful cake was the highlight of my friend’s birthday brunch. Thank you so much. I am wondering if anyone has tried it making it with gluten-free flour and if so which one. Thanks again!
I will try with a gluten free flour. I used the best chocolate cake recipe on here with one and turned out absolutely amazing so I am hopeful this one as well! I used Orly’s Sydney blend in that one and will on this one too.
Made this as a rainbow swirl cake because I wanted something besides vanilla for my daughter’s birthday. It worked beautifully. It’s so moist even after being frozen and thawed! (I just put the cakes into gallon ziplocks to freeze/thaw)
My husband doesn’t like cream cheese in desserts (no, I’m not sure what’s wrong with him) so I did the cake with an Italian Merangue. A normal buttercream with some lemon made it taste like fruit loops (especially with the rainbow swirl, that’s all I could think about). The Italian Merangue was really good on it though.
Has anyone tried using lemon curd as filling?
yes…delicious.
I did and it was delightful. I’m not a big icing fan and prefer it in smaller quantities. The curd added a really nice softness to the flavour if that makes sense.
yes! its amazing – AND i make something called ‘ermine’ icing (which was the original white cream cheese frosting for Red Velvet cake … its boiled firs – no powdered sugar – it is next level and i’ve never made powdered sugar cream cheese frosting since – i recommend you find a recipe for it) … also, I swirl lemon curd into the frosting on the top of the cake … it looks like a sun – or i mix it completely into the frosting for more intense lemon (as he cake itself does not taste very lemony but is a fabulous opportunity / base for the lemon curd etc
i reduce the sugar in this cake by about half to 3/4 cup
i used modern honey’s lemon curd recipe – but used another method where you cream the eggs and sugar together first … its a food sciencey thing where it stops any possibility of curdling when you cook it / add eggs etc … it was absolutely genius and fool proof
another thing i do with this cake is that I use raw sugar but I blend it finer – when I blend it I add the lemon zest – it infuses the lemon oils into the sugar which is awesome
Can this be made in a 9X13?
Yes I made this in 9×13 and put thick frosting over top. It was fantastic!!!!
Has anyone tried making this in a 9×13 pan. I don’t have much luck frosting a two layered cake.
Dear Mellissa,
This is the best lemon cake I’ve ever tasted! I had a piece at a fundraiser and found out who donated it. They very graciously gave me the recipe, although, with a cake this good, I thought they might not share it. The thing I loved most about the cake was the crispy top of the layers. She made three layers, so there was ample opportunity to experience that unexpected crunch. Is that caused from the oil sort of caramelizing as it bakes or do you think she added something? I read about half the comments and didn’t see any mention of a crunch.
Not the author of the recipe, but I wonder if the baker buttered her pans and then dusted with sugar rather than flour-gives a nice crunch like you describe-just have to unmold cake within 10-15 minutes so sugar doesn’t have a chance to stick to the pan!
ETA also possible they sprinkled top of layers with sugar before baking, since you describe crunch as being on top.