This Lemon Orange Cake with Lemon Honey Glaze is a delicious citrusy cake, easy to make and topped with an incredible lemon honey glaze for a little extra tang and sweetness!

You all know I love my lemon desserts like Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake and Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Loaf, it must be the citrus flavor I love so much! This cake packs a double whammy of citrus tang thanks to both lemon juice and lots of orange juice. What can I tell you about this cake, other than it’s moist, it’s citrusy and it’s so freaking good.
I’m making this cake completely from scratch today, no boxed cake on my counter. We’re going to achieve tons of moisture, flavor, and light airy cake crumb this way. Top all that fluffy citrus cake with a lemon honey glaze and you’ve got something special on your hands.
Ingredients
Detailed measurements and instructions can be found on the printable recipe card on the bottom of the page.
Lemon orange cake
- Flour – All purpose flour works just fine for this recipe.
- Leavening agents – Both baking powder and baking soda.
- Salt – Salt is so important in any and all baked goods.
- Citrus – We’re using both lemon and orange juice as well as the zest from both fruits.
- Butter – Unsalted as we want to control the sodium in our dessert.
- Sugar – Just plain old granulated white sugar for a nice clean flavor.
- Milk – You can use any kind of milk you would like, regardless of fat content.
- Eggs – We’re using 5 eggs today, quite a bit I know but believe me you’ll want them.
Lemon honey glaze
- Sugar – We want powdered sugar for this glaze as granulated sugar will produce a grainy glaze. This will act as a thickened and binder for our glaze.
- Honey – This will add some syrupy sweetness to our cake.
- Lemon – We’re just using nice acidic lemon juice to carry that citrus taste through from our cake to our glaze.
How To Make Lemon Orange Cake
- Prepare the oven: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously coat a bundt pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- Combine the dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, combine together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk in the orange and lemon zest. Set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar: In the bowl of your electric mixer, use the paddle attachment to mix the butter and sugar together for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Form the batter: To the bowl of your mixer add the lemon juice, orange juice, milk, the eggs and mix to combine. Begin adding the flour mixture a little bit at a time. Scrape the sides of the bowl as necessary. Mix for a couple minutes until the batter is smooth and all the ingredients are well incorporated.
- Bake the cake: Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 50 min to an hour until done. Check the center of the cake with a toothpick and if it comes out clean it’s done.
- Prepare the glaze: To make the lemon honey glaze whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Finish the cake: Let the cake cool on a wire rack. Once cool, drizzle the cake with the lemon honey glaze and decorate with additional lemon or orange zest if preferred.
How Much Juice Is In Our Citrus Fruits?
This answer varies quite a bit depending on the size of your lemon or orange. A lemon holds about 3 tablespoons of juice while an orange holds about 4 tablespoons. Be sure your fruits are at room temperature and roll them firmly between your hand and the counter before juicing.
Some Tips
- I’ve found that they key to ensuring this cake stays nice and moist is really giving it some time to cool down on your counter. Allow it to sit for as long as you can wait!
- If you can wait long enough I find that this cake is even better the next day.
- Sometimes where you place your loaf pan in the oven can make a difference, some swear by baking their loaves near the top of the oven whereas some prefer the middle. Here’s a handy guide explaining the science behind rack placement. So play around and see what works best with your oven!
- The best way to avoid a mess when glazing is to place the loaf on a wire cooling rack over a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, clean up time will be cut in half!
Make Ahead?
Yes you can! If you’d like to make this just a few days in advance feel free to store this cake right on the counter for up to 3 days just be sure to cover it to prevent it from drying out. The glaze can also be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.
Freezer
If you’d prefer to store in the freezer, wrap the cake tightly in aluminum foil before placing in a large ziploc bag, be sure to press out as much of the air in the bag as possible before sealing. This method will keep your cake fresh for up to 4 months. To thaw you’ll want to keep it wrapped in foil as it thaws on your counter for up to 3 hours.
Don’t glaze your loaf before putting it in the freezer, the glaze can become runny while thawing.
Craving More Lemon? Try These Delicious Recipes:
- Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
- Old Fashioned Lemon Bread
- Lemon Blueberry Scones
- Lemon Yogurt Cake
- Strawberry Lemon Bundt Cake
- Lemon Poppy Seed Bread With Lemon Icing
- Lemon Bars
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Lemon Orange Cake with Lemon Honey Glaze
Ingredients
Lemon Orange Cake
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoon orange zest grated
- 2 tablespoon lemon zest grated
- 1 cup butter unsalted and softened
- 1 1/4 cup sugar white
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 3/4 cup milk
- 5 eggs
Lemon Honey Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoon honey
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously coat a bundt pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk in the orange and lemon zest. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your electric mixer, use the paddle attachment to mix the butter and sugar together for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
- To the bowl of your mixer add the lemon juice, orange juice, milk, the eggs and mix to combine. Begin adding the flour mixture a little bit at a time. Scrape the sides of the bowl as necessary. Mix for a couple minutes until the batter is smooth and all the ingredients are well incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 50 min to an hour until done. Check the center of the cake with a toothpick and if it comes out clean it’s done.
- To make the lemon honey glaze whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Let cake cool on a wire rack. Once cool, drizzle the cake with the lemon honey glaze and decorate with additional lemon or orange zest if preferred.
Can you use a regular hand mixer since I don’t have paddle mixer
Absolutely!
Can I use cake flour
Yes you can. Use 1 cup and 2 tbsp cake flour for every cup of AP flour called for in the recipe.
Is it ok to use salted butter?…..
Absolutely, just reduce the salt then.
Everyone enjoyed it. I was very worried about how it would taste, because I used bitter/oranges instead of sweet oranges. It turned out GREAT!
wonderful treat. Very refreshing and easy to make.
Gotcha. Thanks
Here’s a thought. Why not use self-rising flour for this recipe like the Brits do?
Just sayin.
For each cup of self rising flour, there is 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt. For this recipe, that would be a total of 4 1/2 tsp of BP and 1 1/2 tsp of salt. Too much!
Loved the cake! My daughter made it yesterday & it was a moist & delicious cake with a tangy flavor that the whole family loved. There was one snafu that happened & I want to avoid that for next time so need a tip regarding that. The liquid split when she blended the mixture. It did come together after adding the flour but was wondering if there was a technique to avoid having it curdled. Thanks
Don’t worry about the splitting! That is common when using softened or melted butter with cold ingredients, like the orange juice for example. As long as everything comes together in the end, you’re all good.
Watching Eagles ando Giants, made the cake inot 9×13 inch pan didn’t hurt that citrus flavor at all! And the glaze, took it over the top. Will be making this again. Thank you!!!
Made this recipe and it is absolutely delicious 🙏🏽 Thanks for sharing! adding it to my recipe cookbook 💖💖
My daughter loves cakes. Especially like the beautiful decorations like this. Me and my daughter will do it.
Just tried the recipe and my children have been begging to eat the moment it came out of the oven… They love it so much. Easy, delicious recipe…
Thank you for this recipe,will definitely try it over the weekend.
Where do I find the measurements for the lemon and orange juices?
I’m not sure what you mean Kelly, you need about 2 tbsp of the orange and lemon zest. Use a regular measuring tablespoon.
Step 2 and 4 are getting me a little confused. Do you sift the flour separately or do you add all the ingredients and sift together?
Also, in step 4; did you mean the orange ZEST or do we need orange juice as well. If so you should probably update the ingredients too.
Please and thank you!
I’ve updated the recipe. 🙂
I did not read anything about sifting.
thanks! just the recipe I was trying to find 🙂 Looks delicisous!