Celebrate bright spring flavors with a delicious Lemon Zucchini Cake! Perfect any time of year, this lightly sweet dessert is a lemony treat!
Lemon Zucchini Cake features layers of sweet, moist lemon cake with a secret ingredient gardeners and bakers alike love to use- zucchini! Start this easy cake off with a cake mix plus sugar, butter, and eggs, and mix in fresh squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest, and grated zucchini for a moist and lemon-rich cake that everyone will sprint to the table to devour!
Life, Please Give Me Lemons!
There’s no shortage of amazing lemon desserts in the world- it’s the perfect fruit to brighten one’s day! Lemon Zucchini Cake turns every frown upside down, especially if you’re a gardener whose zucchini plant is abundant! Zucchini is a wonderful ingredient to use in baking to keep things nice, moist as well as light, and delicious. The lemon in this cake shines and is the perfect centerpiece for any occasion, so let life give you all the lemons. You know how to turn them into something scrumptious!
Lemon Bars are classic sunshine, summer must-haves, and easy-to-snack-on sweet Lemon Sugar Cookies!
Other Recipes to Serve with Lemon Zucchini Cake
- Give breakfast or brunch a delicious burst of sunny brightness with Lemon Rolls!
- Zucchini is great as a side dish or in cakes, but don’t forget about how great it is also in soft, sweet Frosted Zucchini Cookies!
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients: To make this recipe, you will need a box of yellow cake mix and granulated sugar. If you can’t find yellow cake mix, you can also use vanilla or white cake mix.
Wet Ingredients: You will also need softened unsalted butter, eggs, and vanilla extract.
Produce: Pick up a couple of lemons to zest and juice, as well as zucchini to finely grate. You will use a lot of lemons in this recipe, so picking up a bag of lemons is a good idea. Also, squeeze out the excess moisture from the zucchini so the cake doesn’t turn out mushy.
Icing: To make the icing, you will need softened unsalted butter, powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
Garnish: Top your cake with thin slices of lemon for a beautiful presentation.
How to Make Lemon Zucchini Cake
STEP ONE: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease two 8-inch round cake pans. Cream the butter and sugar using a stand mixer or a bowl with beaters. Add the eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla extract and beat for one minute.
STEP TWO: Use a spatula to fold the cake mix into the mixing bowl. Once just mixed, fold in the grated zucchini.
STEP THREE: Pour an equal amount of cake batter into each prepared cake pan and bake for 25 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely on a wire rack.
STEP FOUR: In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, 1 cup of powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest until combined. Beat in one cup of powdered sugar until it is all mixed in and the frosting is smooth.
STEP FIVE: Place one of the cakes on a plate or serving platter, bottom side down, and smooth about 1/3 of the icing over the top of the cake only. Place the second cake on top with the bottom side facing up, and cover the top and sides with more icing. Save some of the icing to pipe rosettes on the cake. Garnish the cake with twisted lemon slices, and enjoy!
Tips for Success
- Zest the lemons before juicing them, as you will need both the zest and the juice in the cake and the icing in this recipe.
- Small and medium zucchinis may not contain much water, but squeezing out what moisture you can is a good idea. Large zucchinis are great for baking because their texture sometimes does not make them suitable for sauteing or grilling, and you will definitely need to squeeze a lot of water out!
- Keep the cake covered in the fridge for up to three days or wrap it well and freeze for up to three months. Allow the cake to thaw in the fridge before enjoying it again.
How do you make a box cake taste like it came from a bakery?
A box of cake mix is a wonderful ingredient to use when trying to save a little time, but more importantly, it’s a great way to use the correct amount of dry ingredients in a recipe. Using the precise amount of dry ingredients can be tough if you don’t have a calibrated kitchen scale, so using a cake mix is great. Plus, you can make it taste like it came from a bakery!
Just like in this recipe, adding eggs, butter, or milk instead of the water and oil usually listed as required ingredients on the box can take your cake from dry and blah to amazing. So, if your cake mix calls for water, substitute that with the same amount of milk. Rather than including oil, add butter. You can also use an extra egg or a splash more vanilla extract to bring out the flavors of the cake.
Should you drain zucchini before baking?
To drain or not to drain is the age-old question when using zucchini in baking! Small and medium-sized zucchini tend not to have as much water, so you may not worry as much when using that size. On the other hand, a large zucchini is fully saturated and will require you to squeeze out the excess water. Zucchini adds a wonderful moistness to baked goods, but too much water can ruin a good thing, so drain what you can before adding it to your batter.
More Delicious Cakes and Sweets!
- Zucchini Texas Sheet Cake
- Lemon Trifle
- Lemon Cake Roll Recipe
- Lemon-Lime Layer Cake
- Blueberry Lemon Coffee Cake
*This post originally posted on 06/09/2016.
Equipment
Ingredients
Lemon Zucchini Cake
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- 4 large eggs
- 1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest (about 2 lemons)
- ½ tablespoon vanilla extract
- 13.25 ounces vanilla cake mix (1 box)
- 1 cup finely grated zucchini packed, with its water
Lemon Butter Cream
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest (about 2 lemons)
- Thin lemon slices for garnish
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add in the eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Beat on medium-low speed for 1 minute.
- Pour in the cake mix and fold into the wet ingredients using a rubber spatula until well combined. Fold in the grated zucchini until evenly mixed. Divided the cake batter between the two prepared cake pans.
- Bake for 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Then run a knife around the edge and turn the cakes out onto a wire rack. Allow to cool completely.
Frosting
- Add 1 cup of powdered sugar, the butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest to a large mixing bowl. Beat together until smooth. Continue adding the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Set aside.
Assembly
- If needed, level the tops of the cakes. Place 1 cake layer, bottom side down, onto a cake stand or platter. Spread about 1/3 of the frosting over the top of the cake in an even layer with an offset spatula.
- Place the second cake, bottom side up, over the first layer. Frost the top and sides of the cake so they are coated. I like to reserved about 1/2 cup of frosting to pipe rosettes on top of the cake. Then, garnish the top with twisted lemon slices, if desired.
Carole from Carole's Chatter says
Hi Sandra, lovely cake, hope you’ll bring this on over to Food on Friday: Cakes over at my house (Carole’s Chatter)!