Just six ingredients are all you need to bake the most flavorful and delicious Lemon Surprise Cake! If you happen to love Lemon Pound Cake as much as I do, try my from-scratch version! (Better yet, try this Cream Cheese Pound Cake. It’s award-winning!)
Lemon Surprise Cake
Why did I call this a lemon “surprise” cake? Because it has lemon-lime soda as an ingredient! I was a bit shocked that one little can of soda can make such a wonderful difference in a cake, but it did. I can’t wait to try this with other flavors!
Traditionally speaking, this is a lemon pound cake and has been around for many generations. Our grandmothers were masters of finding ways to save money and use what they had to create beautiful and delicious desserts.
What is a Lemon Surprise Cake?
This is actually considered a pound cake. The definition of pound cake is this: a rich cake containing a pound, or equal weights, of each chief ingredient, typically flour, butter, and sugar. One of the original lemon pound cake recipes was: (OH MY GOSH A DOZEN EGGS?!?!)
- 1 pound sugar
- 1 pound butter
- 1 pound flour
- 1 dozen eggs
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
With changes in the sourcing of flours, accessibility of ingredients, quality of butter, and the addition of extracts in baking, some modifications have been made to that original recipe.
So if you want to get technical, this lemon pound cake recipe does not have equal parts of flour, butter, and sugar. However, it still maintains the rich flavor and beautiful, dense crumb that is commonly associated with a pound cake.
Easy 7-Up Cake
As you can tell, this cake recipe is much easier! A few simple ingredients!
Lemon Surprise Cake
Ingredients
Lemon Cake
- 1 1/2 cup (339g or 3 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups (600g) granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 3 cups (384g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp. McCormick Lemon Extract
- 3/4 cup lemon-lime soda, like 7-up or Sprite
Lemon Glaze
- 3 cups (375g) confectioners sugar
- 4 tablespoons salted butter, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon McCormick Lemon Extract
- 0-4 tablespoons milk (optional)
Instructions
Lemon Cake
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour (or spray with non-stick spray) a bundt pan.
- Cream sugar and butter in the bowl of stand mixer on medium speed until fluffy and light.
- With the mixer on low, add eggs one at a time and mix well.
- Add in lemon extract and soda and then slowly add in flour and mix until fully incorporated.
- Bake at 350°F for one hour and fifteen minutes or until inserted toothpick is removed with very few crumbs.
Lemon Glaze
- Place butter in bowl and mix (with hand-held mixer or stand mixer) until light. Add in confectioners sugar and extract. Mix until fully combined. (If frosting is too thick it can be thinned with a little milk.)
Video
Did you make this recipe?
Thank you for making my recipe! You took pictures, right? Well go ahead and post them on Instagram! Be sure to mention me @iambaker and use the hashtag #YouAreBaker.
Let me know if you try this super easy and delicious cake! Photography by Ashlee Marie.
For the butter…is it 1 1/2 sticks or 1 1/2 cups?
1 1/2 cups! 3 sticks. 339g. Sorry about that!
This is a lot of sugar.
Because lemon is sour.
I did not see any rising agent like baking powder or. Soda does this cake omit either of these.
Did you get an answer about the rising agents? Ithas to have either soda or powder to rise. Please post the answer if you found out.
Thank you,
THe soda is what makes it rise.
Wouldn’t the butter be 2 and 1/2 sticks to make a cup and a half? I really want to try this cake, looks delicious.
Three sticks would make 1.5 cups.
Yes, Krystal is right! Sorry about that.
Each stick of butter is 1/2 cup, ergo 3 sticks will equal 1 1/2 cups
Hi Amanda can’t wait to make this! Couple of concerns…in the video you show adding lemon zest, which is not in the ingredient list and for the icing you show adding MELTED butter. Could you clarify please. Thank you.
Love your recipes!
Hi! I would just follow the written directions for the recipe. 🙂
But how much lemon zest?
Hi. Can I use a round cake tin to bake this instead of bundt cake tin? If yes, how many inche bake tin should I use? Thanks
I would like to know this too as i don’t have a bundt tin
)ne teaspoon of lemon extract for the frosting does NOT make frosting. I had to ad several tablespoons of milk to reach frosting consistency. Very tasty cake.
Is the butter salted or non salted?
Always non-salted unless specified.
Looks so yummy! I can not keep my mouth shut! Slurp! Slurp!