Creamy Dreamy Lemon Loaf (Shhh… They’re better than Starbucks!)

What better way to start off the Saturday of a long weekend (thank you Queen Victoria!) than with a bright, fresh, tart, summer lemon loaf recipe. If you’ve ever taken a bite of the one from Starbucks, you’ve been wanting to make it at home. If you’ve ever taken a bite of this loaf, which I was lucky enough to find over at Kristyn’s Lil Luna blog, then you’ll never think about that Starbucks one again.

If you aren’t already following Kristyn, you should be. Her food always looks incredible, and her home style is exactly like mine. I’m pretty much grabbing every crafty image off her instagram to make for our house. I didn’t change much with her recipe, just a few little tweaks because I wanted to cut down the lemon extract a bit, and use a bit more fresh lemon.

Now, I know, you’ll look at the ingredient list and think “Dear lord that is a lot of ingredients for a simple little loaf”. I know, I get it, I did the same thing. It is worth it though, I promise you. So SO worth it!

Enough jabbering, let’s get to the recipe so we can all start enjoying the day! (I say “enjoy”, but I’ve got a day of necessary lawn maintenance and gardening to do in order to have a presentable looking home again. I’ll be rewarding my grass stained self with some BBQ jerk chicken pizza on the grill tonight, and a beer, I’ll definitely need a beer by then).

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Creamy Dreamy Lemon Loafs (Shhh… They’re better than Starbucks!)

Yield: 1 large loaf, or 3 mini loaves

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 55 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

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Ingredients

Cake

• 1½ cups flour
• 1 package instant lemon pudding mix (3.4oz)
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• ½ cup fresh lemon juice
• ½ cup oil
• ¾ cup plain Greek yogurt (you can sub. regular plain yogurt, or sour cream)
• zest of 2 lemons

Frosting

• 3 tbsp butter, softened
• 1½ cup powdered sugar
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• zest of 1 lemon

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF with a rack in the middle position. Grease a large 5" x 9" loaf pan, or three mini loaf pans, and set aside. I use PAM or Wilton baking spray, and never have any release issues.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, pudding mix, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
5. In a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, beat together the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon juice, oil, yogurt, and lemon zest, until well combined.
7. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet, beating on med-low and scraping down the sides of the bowl, as required, until just combined and no dry bits of flour remain.
9. Pour the batter into the prepared tins. Bake for about 55-60 minutes if using one large loaf tin, about 25-30 minutes if using three small loaf tins. Check for doneness by poking a toothpick into the center of the loaf and seeing that it comes out crumb free.
11. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to completely cool.
13. While the loaf is baking, prepare the frosting.
15. Using a hand mixer, beat the butter, lemon juice, and zest together. Add the icing sugar and beat until nice and smooth and creamy, about 2 - 3 minutes. Spread on the top of the cooled loaf.

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