Lemon Cake- A Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
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 easy 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 its 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!
Table of Contents
How to Make a Lemon Cake- Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
You can find the full, printable cake recipe further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!
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 ½ 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!
Looking for a Lemon Scratch Recipe Also?
I should also mention that while we LOVE 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 (Any mix without pudding in the mix)
- 1 cup (114g) all purpose flour (plain in the UK)
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- ½ box (4Tablespoons, (48g) instant lemon pudding (we used Jell-O brand) Do not make pudding, use the dry mix.
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ⅓ cups (322g) water
- 1 cup (242g) sour cream (we use full fat sour cream)
- 1 Tablespoon (12g) lemon extract
- ½ 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 ½ cups batter
- Works well for cupcakes
Hi Ebony, No, this recipe does not have oil or butter.
Perfect.
Thank you for the recipes. So far everyone I have made turned out great. For this cake...do you recommend freezing to enhance moistness like you mentioned for the buttermilk vanilla cake? I am planning on making it for Thursday. Thank you!
Hi Katherine, Thank you for your nice compliment about our recipes. Yes, freezing the cake layers while still warm will enhance their moistness. The layers will be on their own cake boards. It is important to keep the layers airtight, wrapping the layers individually with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. We almost always freeze. When pressed for time we still freeze for a couple of hours. Hope you will enjoy the cake.
I made these today and they were perfect! Even though I accidentally picked up french vanilla pudding instead of lemon....oops. Just added two more lemons worth of zest and they were the best lemon cupcakes ever. The texture and rise was perfect.
I was wondering...if I left out the lemon zest and extract and still used the french vanilla pudding, would this make for a great vanilla cupcake recipe?
Hi Chelsea, I'm happy you enjoyed the lemon cupcakes. Yes, just leave out the lemon zest and extract for vanilla cupcakes.
Made this for Christmas2018. Walmart was out of white cake mix so I used DH French vanilla instead. Used spray Baker's Secret instead of old-school grease & flour. The rest of the recipe I followed exactly. Came out awesome!
Love it!
Hi Valerie and Lucinda, Thanks for posting, I'm happy you like the recipe!
I made this recipe in Denver (approx 5280 ft) and it worked great! I used a BC Supermoist vanilla mix. And I didn't have lemon extract so I used zest of 2 lemons and juiced the lemons and added the water to the juice to make the 1 1/3cups of water. The lemon flavor didn't smack you in the face, but it was there.
If baking at altitude, use an oven thermometer to make sure your oven gets to the right temperature. Mine was about 10 degrees cool.
Hi Stephanie, Wonderful, I'm glad it worked for you at high altitude! Thanks so much for posting your tips, I'm sure it will help others.
Hi I’m thinking about trying this recipe today, could I use buttermilk instead of sour cream? Thank you!!