If you’ve been searching for the BEST recipe for Lemon Cake from a doctored cake mix, we are happy to say that this is it!
This lemon cake has a lovely soft texture, is ultra moist, has fantastic lemon flavor, works for cupcakes as well as cake layers, and is sturdy enough to hold up to fondant! What’s not to love?
We’ve frosted this lemon layer cake with a luscious Lemon Buttercream, which is a new recipe for our site also! We’ve fallen in love with it’s lemon flavor and it pipes like a dream.
We’re so glad to have this lemon buttercream option for slathering and swirling onto all sorts of cakes from lemon cake to homemade vanilla buttermilk cake to classic yellow, coconut and even strawberry! Lemon buttercream pairs perfectly with so many cake flavors.
However, our Lemon Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting as well as our homemade Lemon Curd Filling would both be great choices!
Now let’s back to the business of doctoring up a simple cake mix to make the BEST Lemon Cake ever!
First, you’ll start with a simple white cake mix (look for recipes that do not contain pudding in the mix as we’ll be adding a bit of lemon pudding to this recipe). We used Duncan Hines.
- Combine the sifted cake mix with the flour, sugar, and pudding and whisk to blend. *Just 4 tablespoons of pudding is all that we needed to really make a difference in the texture and flavor of this cake.
- We tried baking without the lemon pudding, and while it was good, the stand-out favorite among all of our family taste-testers was the version that contained pudding. The texture is more velvety and the lemony flavor is really nice. We also tried using Lemon Cake Mix instead of White, but didn’t like the flavor as much.
- Add the remaining ingredients, including the eggs, water, sour cream, extracts, and lemon zest. The addition of pudding, sour cream, and flour give the cake a from-scratch feel, as it is a bit denser than a straight from the box cake mix cake…but I wouldn’t describe this as a dense cake. It is light, has a soft texture, and did I mention an amazing lemon flavor? SO good!
This recipe makes about 7 1/2 cups of batter which was just the right amount to divide between three 8 inch layers. I love cake recipes that have enough batter for three layers so that you can have an additional layer of filling! Mmmmm….bring on the lemon buttercream!
I should also mention that while we adore this doctored Lemon Cake Mix recipe, we have a favorite Scratch Lemon Cake Recipe as well! If you enjoy baking scratch recipes also, this is a great one! We hope to eventually have a doctored cake mix version and scratch version of all of our recipes!
Lemon Cake: A Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
Nobody would guess that this amazing lemon cake recipe all starts with a simple cake mix! So moist and lemony!
Ingredients
- 1 box (15.25 oz.) white cake mix, sifted ( Duncan Hines or any mix without pudding in the mix)
- 1 cup (114g) all purpose flour (plain in the UK)
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- 1/2 box (4Tablespoons, 48g) instant lemon pudding (we used Jell-O brand)
- 3 large eggs
- 1 1/3 cups (322g) water
- 1 cup (242g) sour cream
- 1 Tablespoon (12g) lemon extract
- 1/2 teaspoon (2g) vanilla extract
- zest of one lemon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 8x2 inch round cake pans.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the dry ingredients and whisk at least 30 seconds to blend.
- Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and mix on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix for 1 more minute. If you are using a hand mixer, mix for a bit longer.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Check at 25 minutes, if a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, it is done.
- Cool in the pans 5 to 10 minutes then turn out.
- Makes 7 1/2 cups batter
- Works well for cupcakes
Hi Jenny, If you are using 9×2 round pans, use only 2 pans or your layers will be too thin. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Hope you will love the cake!
Started mixing and realized that I didn’t have any sour cream, do I need to have it?
Hi Sondra, Yes, you do need it for the recipe. A substitute for it would be plain Greek yogurt, or full fat yogurt. I have read online that you could use 1/2 cup mayonnaise mixed with 1/2 cup milk (preferably full fat milk). Keep in mind that I have never tried the mayo substitute. Hope all goes well, let me know.
This seems like a lot of sugar! Is it super sweet? Could I get away with less sugar?
Also, have you tried putting lemon curd between layers?
Hi Cristi, We don’t find the cake too sweet, I have not experimented with less sugar so I can’t be sure of the outcome. We have used lemon curd in our Lemon Cake made from scratch recipe. Here is a link to the curd recipe,
link to mycakeschool.com
Can a lemon cake mix be substituted for the white?
Hi Lynn, We have not tried using lemon cake mix so I don’t know for sure. You may need to use a vanilla instant pudding instead of lemon flavored since the lemon cake mix will have its own lemon flavor. I think I would try that if I were experimenting…….and leave everything else the same in the recipe. Let me know how it goes.
This is a perfect, flexible, recipe for using a cake mix and making it your own! We recently used this recipe for vegan (using Targets plant-based sour cream and Neat egg) and gluten-free (GF cake mix; we added chick pea flour). These were the best GF/vegan cupcakes we have ever tasted!!! We brought them for Christmas Eve and they were scooped up immediately by all non vegans and The gluten-eating masses! We added homemade lemon curd to the cupcakes too bc GF is often too dry, but honestly I don’t know if they needed it.
Hi Diane, It is great to know the success you had making this recipe GF/vegan. Thanks so much for posting the substitutions that made the recipe work for you.