Lemon Mug Cake
This lemon mug cake recipe is ready in five minutes! It’s light and fluffy with the perfect amount of lemon flavor.
I’ve been getting a lot of requests for lemon recipes, and I’m working on trying to get some on the blog, but I rarely have fresh lemons in my house, and I’m not a very big citrus dessert person.
But I recently had a few lemons lying around and decided to try making a lemon mug cake. It’s a quick and easy treat when you’re craving a lemon dessert.
Ingredients
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Fat-free milk
- Granulated sugar
- Vegetable oil
- Fresh lemon juice
- Lemon zest
Recipe Steps
Whisk the flour, baking powder, sugar, milk, oil, and lemon juice in a microwave-safe mug. Whisk in the lemon zest.
Cook the mug cake in the microwave for about one minute. The cake is done when the top is dry.
For the best flavor, let the cake cool before eating it.
You can also add a lemon glaze, frosting, or dust the top with powdered sugar.
It came out light and fluffy and lemony. I do feel like it was a little plain and needed something to make it stand out, so I would add a topping like powdered sugar or lemon glaze the next time I make it.
I do think it’s a good start for a base of a lemon mug cake, though, and if you really love lemon, this is a quick and easy recipe to try.
More Mug Cake Recipes
- Lemon Cloud Mug Cake
- Keto Lemon Mug Cake
- Flourless Chocolate Mug Cake
- Low-Carb Coconut Mug Cake
- Vanilla Mug Cake
Lemon Mug Cake
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 3 tbsp fat free milk
- 2 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
- lemon zest
Instructions
- Using a small whisk, mix together flour, baking powder, sugar, milk, oil and lemon juice in a microwave safe mug until batter is smooth. Grate some fresh lemon zest on top of batter and whisk into batter.
- Cook in microwave for about 1 minute. Top of cake should be dry. Let cool before eating. Add a lemon glaze if desired.
Amazing. That’s all I can say after tasting it. One word. Gorgeous. Nothing wrong with it at all. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, and if you have a sweet tooth, add blueberries.
Thanks for the nice review and rating!
Real good and real quick. Highly recommended you enjoy this too.
We’re glad you enjoyed it!
i made this but instead of using lemon juice, i used pure lemon extract (i didn’t have lemon juice on hand at the time) and it was so good!!!!
Love that you used extract! Thanks for letting us know 🙂
my husband was craving lemon cake, turned out great he really liked it.. only sorry we didnt make 2. thanks great recipe
We’re so glad he loved it!
Added a few raspberries, which made it more moist. Plus a lemon glaze on top. Healthy? No. Delicious? Yes!
That sounds great! Thanks for letting us know.
Tried two times to make this and both times it was a huge fail I’m a good cook, so I know what I’m doing.
Lots of readers have made this recipe with success, so without knowing more details it’s hard to know what happened with yours unless you let us know. Would love to help if we can!
I’m home alone today and craving cake, I didn’t want to use a whole cake recipe and looked for a mug cake to have the ingredients already set for one portion. I decided to use this recipe and bake it in the oven instead, let’s see what comes out of it ? thank you for the recipe!
Loved it ? heaven in a Mug ?
I’m so glad you liked it!
This tasted pretty good, but I think the lemon flavor could be increased a little more, but then again I didn’t use and lemon glaze. ?
I’m glad you liked it. the lemon glaze definitely helps!
i to did not use the glaze but the second time i made it i added another tbsp of lemon juice and a dash of salt. it made it so much better without having to make the glaze!
Thanks for letting us know!
idk why i might have messed up but it was so nasty-
Sounds like maybe you mismeasured some ingredients?
Lemon glaze recipe please
You can mix about a tablespoon of powdered sugar with a little lemon juice to make the glaze. You can adjust those two ingredients to get a consistency to drizzle the glaze over the cake. Hope that helps!
How do I prepare it to be moist?
Don’t overcook the mug cake – that will dry it out and make it rubbery.
Good recipe. I added a few drops of vanilla and a shake or two of salt. It was great with a lemon glaze. 2 tblsp of confectioners sugar and about 1 tblsp lemon juice. That woke it up.
I’m glad you liked it!
I’ve made this many times and love it! Thank you for the wonderful recipe. ??
I’m so glad you like it!
I made this today for my husband’s birthday. We don’t like to have a huge cake around for the two of us, and this was perfect! I melted 1 TB of butter in the mug first, instead of oil and swished it around the mug, then added the wet ingredients to the mug, followed by the dry. Used 2% milk. I made 2 mugs, each separately, and added the glaze after they cooled down at bit. The lemon juice in the glaze added another layer of lemon flavor! Yum! A keeper that I will make again. Yes… do use fresh squeezed lemon and zest.
I’m so glad it worked out!
Do you know what happened if your mug cake is still ever so slightly transparent on the inside? But it tastes great!
I’m not quite understanding your question but I’m glad it tasted great!
Absolutely delicious!!! I’ve made A LOT of mug cakes during quarantine and this one was by far the best! My microwave has never made a mug cake so light and fluffy!!! Love it, thanks for the recipe!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
I decided to make this for me and my parents and we loved it!! I just want to thank you and myself for finding this recipe. will definitely make again!
I’m glad you and your parents liked it!
I love this (and have made the actual recipe before) but I don’t have any fresh lemon currently. Can I use lemon extract and/or lemon juice instead?
yes. Lemon extract would really boost the lemon flavor.
Hi, Kirbie — I have no fresh lemons. Can I use bottled lemon juice, do you think? Thank you for this beautiful recipe, I’m going to try it for my birthday! I’ll also be looking at your other mug cake recipes!
Yes you can, though my experience is that bottled lemon juice flavor isn’t quite as concentrated.
Very good! I put some cream cheese frosting and a couple more drops of lemon on top! Would definitely make again!
Sounds delicious with the cream cheese frosting!
Can I Substitute apple sauce in place of the oil?
I have not tried
Excellent! Thank you! The lightest mug cake i’ve made. I always mix my ingredients in a small bowl (just easier that way), all dry, then add wet, used Meyer lemons, less sugar, and 1% or 2% milk. Has always turned out soooo good! ?
I’m glad you enjoy this recipe!
loved the texture and flavor, very delicate and fine crumb, not overly sweet
So glad you enjoyed!
An excellent recipe! Thank you for sharing: Personally, due to the limited ingredients on hand I wound up using butter instead of oil, and whole milk instead of fat free. Still turned out pretty fantastic! Definitely gonna try a lemon icing or glaze next time, I saw a commenter mentioned you had a good recipe for that too so I’ll probably check that out. Cheers!
I’m glad you got it to work for you
Hi! I lived the texture of this cake! Usually I make them and they are spongey and chewy this was great but I would definitely add a little more sugar then lemon kind of overpowered. Great recipe though!
I’m glad you enjoyed the texture!
I was looking for a vegan lemon mug cake recipe and this exceeded my expectations! I used coconut oil and coconut milk. Delish! Thank you for a wonderful recipe.
So glad you enjoyed!
This was sooooooo good I would recommend a little more lemon juice but I loved it
So happy you enjoyed!
Thanks for the recipe. I was looking for a recipe without egg as I am never sure if it’s safe to eat if it was in the microwave. I don’t want to leave the mug in the microwave for too long because I don’t like hard, dry cake. But the egg always worries me.
This recipe worked out well. I live in Europe so I was a bit concerned about the amount to put in but I just eyeballed it. As long as the ratio is the same it turns out just fine. I even put some glaze on top of it.
I’m glad it worked out for you!
It didn’t go well for me.
The cake was heavy and it looked like it wasn’t cook enough so i added 10 seconds at a time 3 times and the texture never change. .
I had to throw it away and i was soo looking forward to eat a good lemon cake.
Could it be the flour ?
In most recipes they ask for 3 tab. Of flour .
What could’ve went wrong ?
I’m sorry to hear you had issues. Did you check to make sure your baking powder is still fresh? if it’s old, that could cause the cake not to rise properly. 4 tablespoons of flour is the correct amount. Also what is the power wattage for your microwave? Mine is a 1000w which is pretty standard but if you have a lower wattage you might need a longer cooking time. And are there any changes to the recipe you did at all? like omit an ingredient, add another, etc.
One more thing, make sure you don’t pack your flour, and make sure you level off your tablespoon, otherwise you will have too much flour in your batter which also could cause the heaviness. Similarly, making sure you don’t overpour any of the liquid ingredients.
Btw, while this recipe has worked fine for me, I actually made another lemon mug cake which I like more because the lemon flavor really comes out well https://kirbiecravings.com/2014/08/lemon-cloud-mug-cake.html
The mug cake turned out really well! I added blueberries and it tasted great.
I’m so glad you enjoyed!
Made this twice. To the letter of the recipe and it turned out pure stodge both times! Cant figure out what went wrong. Shame. I was really looking forward to this from all the comments. 🙁
It looks like you’re coming from the UK and my recipe is with US measuring system. I believe the UK is a little different so I think you need to make sure you adjust properly to UK measurements. Also I know Europe has diff flours so make sure you choose the right one. hope this helps!
At first
When I made this recipe I was worried about how milky the batter was but it turned out light and fluffy and absolutely delicious
Thanks for the recipe I hope you make more recipes like this
I have a huge selection of mug cake recipes you can try out! https://kirbiecravings.com/category/recipes/mug-cakes
Born and raised in Clairemont….thats me!…came across your site today after being at Sams Club where I found Arecipe book for MUG CAKES….
Something I have never heard of
Thank you for all the recipes….
Patt
Glad you found my site!
Kirbie,
First, I wanted to say that I arrived via your Lime Coconut Mug Cake recipe, and now I want to try them all!
Second, I suggest lemon curd for this as Toni did. I made a lemon mug cake a couple years ago and filled it with homemade lemon curd – it was great! Now I’ll be trying your recipe with a lemon glaze.
I am definitely going to try a lemon curd. Thanks!
Maybe lemon curd??
hmm, a lemon curd filling sounds good
mmmm. this looks yummy! I’m going to try it, and throw in a few blueberries.. Yum!
oh good idea!
Great texture and flavor! I like adding a drop or two of vanilla and a tiny pinch of salt.
I’m glad you liked it!
I love me a good mug cake! Yum! 🙂
Me too =)