honey lemon yogurt cake is a lightly sweet “anytime” treat!
what is honey lemon yogurt cake?
Honey lemon yogurt cake came to be because, well, the granola’s helping. A little. But it’s definitely “snack-y”, and right now I’m craving dessert. Specifically, cake. So while this is by no means health food I loved the idea of replacing sugar with honey, and the addition of yogurt (which I would never eat straight but can appreciate the benefits of).
redefining how I look at dessert!
I read an interesting post recently about breaking the dessert habit. The author suggested that – when it comes to healthy eating – it’s not about deprival, but more about moderation and making mindful decisions.
In this post she challenged herself to give up that automatic reach-for-dessert-after-dinner (very much like I did). And my favorite take-away was “only eat a dessert you make yourself”. I liked this rule a lot because it: a) puts you in complete control over what goes into that dessert, and b) is sort of a litmus test for how badly you really want it.
I wanted it really badly.
honey is a great natural sweetener to use in baking!
Honey was up next in my trial of “natural sweeteners“, and I knew just the kind of cake I wanted to make/eat.
I wanted an olive oil cake, with lots of citrus to brighten things up.
A grown up cake, perfect with a cup of tea during these soul-crushing, spirit-squashing gray winter days.
Yeah – I’m missing my sugar.
Hello there, lovely cake…
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Honey Lemon Yogurt Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups plain full-fat yogurt
- 2/3 cup olive oil
- 1 cup honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 heaping tablespoon grated lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- pinch ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9" springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl whisk the eggs lightly. Add the yogurt, olive oil, honey, vanilla, lemon zest and juice, whisking till combined. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk till just smooth and no lumps remain - do not over whisk.
- Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, until a tester comes out clean (cover with foil if the top is getting too dark toward the end). Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool completely.
Notes
- This cake will stay fresh for several days, well wrapped.
- This recipe makes great muffins! Bake in 2 muffin pans for about 25 minutes - thank you Randa!
- If you don't want to make a parchment circle you can buy them pre-cut!
Nutrition
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt (not low-fat)
2/3 cup olive oil
1 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon (generous) grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 oz.) flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch ground nutmeg
Pre-heat oven to 350. Grease a 9″ springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper (Update: one of my readers wrote in to tell me that she made this recipe in muffin tins and they came out great! She got 22 muffins from the batch and baked them for 25 minutes. Thank you Randa!).
In a large bowl whisk eggs lightly. Add yogurt, olive oil, honey, vanilla, lemon zest and juice, whisking till combined. Add remaining ingredients and whisk till just smooth and no lumps remain – do not over whisk.
Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, until a tester comes out clean (cover with foil if the top is getting too dark toward the end). Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes; remove from pan and let cool completely.
This cake will stay fresh for several days, well wrapped.
This delicious recipe brought to you by Sheri Silver
https://sherisilver.com/2013/02/21/honey-lemon-yogurt-cake/
P.S. Isn’t that cup/plate set divine? It was my late mother-in-law’s and I’m obsessed with it. I can almost hear the mahjong tiles clicking every time I use it.
Please note that this post contains affiliate links. As a Rewards Style influencer I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases – at no additional cost to you.
111 Comments
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Hi! I'm Sheri!
Welcome to my little corner of the web where you’ll find easy, delicious recipes, the best kitchen hacks and simple tips for turning your home into a clean haven that is free of toxins. So glad you’re here!
This looks so good! I went off sugar about 5 months ago. Well actually from Monday to Friday I stay clear of anything with any sort of sugar and on week-ends I allow myself a few treats. It makes me really appreciate those little treats so much more than before and I look forward to it all week long.
I’ll give this recipe a try this week-end. I’ve got access to lots of great olive oil around here!
Yes I’m sure you do! Let me know how it turns out! 🙂
I cannot eat much sugar and this recipe looks perfect for a Xmas gathering: I would like to make this cake ahead of time, and would like to know if it freezes well. Please advice.
I have personally never frozen this cake but I’ve frozen many others and have never had an issue – I’m sure it would be fine. Let cool completely, then wrap in plastic, followed by foil. Defrost at room temperature. Let me know how it turns out! 🙂
have never had an olive oil cake. this recipe looks like the perfect balance of sweet but not sick to my stomach sweet. keep it up my sugar free friend. 🙂
Exactly – not too sweet at all – thanks so much!
This looks absolutely amazing. I was just looking up tricks to give up sugar when all of a sudden I thought, “Hey, I bet a honey lemon cake would be fantastic, I wonder if anyone has a recipe” and then came across this perfect sounding recipe! Trying it ASAP, probably tomorrow. Thanks!
Yay! So glad you found it – let me know how it turns out! 🙂
It turned out great, thanks! My first cake ever, thanks for the easy to follow recipe.
Your first ever?? I’m honored! So glad you liked it; thanks for letting me know! 🙂
Yeah, my mom isn’t much of a baker and I’m 20 haha. No problem 🙂
My mom wasn’t either – needless to say I’ve made up for lost time! 😉
I’m hoping to do the same. I will definitely try some of your other recipes in the future!
I had a great recipe for a honey, olive oil, dairy free, whole wheat bundt cake, and cannot find it. I would like to adapt your recipe, and also would like to add fresh figs, because I have a tree which has produced a huge load of them. Let me know how I may adapt this lovely recipe.
I’d use about 1 cup of chopped figs (more or less, depending on your preference!). And rule of thumb is 3/4 c. whole wheat flour for every 1 c. of all purpose. I hope this helps! 🙂
Thank you!
I forgot another question! If I use a bundt pan, how much more in the way of ingredients should I use. Some of those bundt cake recipes call for 4 cups of flour, which seems a lot for this gal who lives with 2 cats that don’t eat cake.
Take a look at this chart: http://allrecipes.com/howto/cake-pan-size-conversions/ – looks like you’d want to double the recipe – let me know!
I would like to make this cake but need it to be dairy free: what can I use to replace the yoghurt?
There are soy and coconut yogurts that I’m sure would work just fine. You could also experiment with an equal amount of clabbered almond or soy milk – stir in a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar per cup of milk and let sit for about 10 minutes. Let me know how it turns out!
I’m very interested in trying this out for my auntie who is avoiding refined sugars. How is the cake texture like? I find that olive oil cakes always end up too oily for my liking but I still want to give it another go.
I love this cake – and I don’t find it oily, the way some can be – let me know if you try it!
Hi! I’d love to try this cake out but don’t have baking powder or bicarb soda.. are they necessary or would self-raising flour alone work?
Thanks 🙂
Hmm – that’s tough because of the baking soda. You can typically swap out the flour, baking powder and salt for the self-rising but I don’t know of a substitute for baking soda that doesn’t involve baking powder. So sorry!!
Thank you. I will try this recipe, and I’ll let you know how it turns out. I’m really interested in any healthy food recipe.
Please do Carol; I’ll post any adaptations on the recipe here! 🙂
Thanks. I’m baking it now, and used whole wheat pastry flour and a bundt cake pan. I had no springform pan, except for a pie pan. I assume that I’ll need to cool it before taking it out of the pan. I oiled it, but did not use parchment.
The bundt cake pan partially worked. Some of the cake was left on the pan, so that problem needs to be resolved, or I will go out and buy a springform cake pan. It still looks good, and it tastes delicious.
I know that it won’t solve the problem of the bundt cake pan, but how about adding poppy or sesame seeds to the recipe?
I’d vote for poppy, and love that with the lemon!
Yes, poppy was my first choice. Good. My book club loved the cake, by the way. Yay!
Oh yay! Thanks for letting me know! 🙂
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
Can you PLEASE make the ingredient measures clearer please your abbreviations mean what ? for none US people the cup thing doesnt work – we never use them and besides none of the measures are clear anyway ! What is 11/2 supposed to mean on the yogurt
My apologies! Small “t” is teaspoon, large “T” is tablespoon. Any liquids measured in “c” refers to cups. A liquid cup = 8 ounces. So 1 1/2 cups would be 12 ounces. There are many conversion charts online for metric equivalents; please let me know if you need me to send you a link!
Sheri,
Do you have a Facebook page for your blog? I would like to “like” you.
Carol Papalas
Yes Carol! Just click the little “F” icon at the top of the page next to the search bar. It will take you to my Facebook page; thank you!
Hi
This recipe looks great.
Do you have any idea how many calories it contains and is there any ingredients that could be swapped to reduce the calories.
Hi there – unfortunately I do not. Swapping ingredients when baking is tricky as it’s sometimes the fat that creates the texture/flavor, which would be compromised otherwise. Sorry – it really is a delicious cake! 🙂
The ingredients don’t skimp on calories, but they are healthy, especially if you use whole wheat pastry flour or a combination of a little bit of soy or almond flour with the pastry flour. The olive oil is good oil and honey is a healthy alternative to sugar.
Hi there. This looks lovely but I was just wondering if you can taste the difference between using vegetable oil and using olive oil? Because olive oil does have quite a strong taste.
The olive oil here is used intentionally – the flavor would definitely be different if you used vegetable oil, probably “heavier”. Personally I would not substitute – hope this helps! 🙂
Just put made this with my daughter and put it in the oven. Cheers!
So glad – please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
It turned out great. Everyone who tried it wanted the recipe. I printed about 30 copies which are gone now. I think I’ll try them in cupcake form next time as we didn’t always have knife handy.
I’m so glad – and you must tell me how the cupcake version comes out – that sounds great! 🙂
Thanks, again. I love this recipe, and I use whole wheat pastry flour. It turns out great.
So glad – and I’ve got a bag of WW pastry flour right now – will give that a try! 🙂
Hi Sheri, I just wanted to say thanks so much for answering the questions fully as you do, as the answers are very helpful. I’m looking fward to trying this recipe and thought I might add oats to it and add a lovely oat topping. 🙂
Thanks so much for writing! And that addition of oats sounds delicious – please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
Hi Sheri,
I changed the recipe a bit. I used 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup almond meal, and 1/4 cup coconut flour, and it turned out incredibly delicious!
Thanks for the original recipe.
Carol Papalas
That sounds amazing – will try your version next time I make this; thanks for sharing!
I’m happy to do it. I love to experiment. In fact, I’ve been experimenting with baking spanakopita, and am getting pretty good at it. The only thing I need is crust. I use filo, and that’s fine, but I remember my mother’s homemade crust, and it was wonderful. My family comes from the island of Ikaria, a blue zone, in Greece, and they make a doughy crust, which is delicious. I’m sorry that I never got my mom’s recipe when she was alive. She died at 96 in 2011. If you have other cooks who have recipes for homemade spanakopita crust on your email list, that would be wonderful.
OOOH – I love spanakopita!
I made this cake yesterday and it’s AMAZING! Soft, delicate but still flavorful. Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for sharing this recipe 🙂
Yay! This is one of my very favorite cakes – so glad you enjoyed and thank you for writing! 🙂
Hi Sheri, I made this today and it was really delicious but I found the texture quite spongy. Not like a light sponge cake but sponge like. Not crumbly like other cakes. Plus it looked a lot darker in colour than your pic. The only ingredients I used that were different to yours was I only had low fat Greek yogurt plus I used extra virgin olive oil. Would this make much of a difference?
Hi there! It’s hard to say – what I have found in my years of baking is that there is less “wiggle” room for substitutions than there is in cooking. So the fat in the yogurt and the darker EVOO might have contributed to the change in texture. I’ve made this particular cake dozens of times over the years with pretty consistent results; perhaps try it again? And let me know! 🙂
I will def try again using the proper ingredients. I just used what I had in my fridge and pantry today. It was still very delicious though
Good! Please let me know!
Im planning to try this recipe this weekend! but i’m worried it will taste too much like olive oil, I was wondering if you could let me know how subtle or strong the taste is:)
I don’t find it to taste at all of olive oil – I used a lighter oil, which I would recommend. It really just lends moistness to the cake, which mostly tastes of the honey and lemon. Let me know how you like it!
Please can you tell me if I should use 12 and a half oz of flour, or 2 and a half cups???? I am confused as i thought a cup was 8 oz (so 2 1/2 cups of flour would be 20oz?)
A liquid cup is 8 ounces. A cup of flour is closer to 4 – 5 ounces. If you’re unsure I would dry measure 2 1/2 cups! Hope this helps!
thanks that’s great x
Can you substitute Agave or Stevia for the honey?
Good question – I never have and don’t know how it would alter the flavor. If you do, let me know how it works out and I’ll add it to the recipe!
can you tell me is that T means Tablespoon and t means teaspoon am I right? thanks
Yes – I’m actually going to edit this now as you’re not the first person to ask! 🙂
I just made this replacing the wheat flour with coconut flour. It’s for my parents 47th wedding anniversary and it turned out so well I took some over to a neighbor. Thank you so much for sharing this is a perfect after dinner bit of sweetness. It’s not too heavy either.
So glad you liked it! Did you use the same amount of coconut flour?
Was just going to ask the same thing about the quantity of coconut flour.
Would it be OK to skip the vanilla and use vanilla yogurt instead of plain?
I’m sure both of those would be fine!
I cut out refined sugar from my diet so I’ve been desperately looking for a cake with no added sugar. I tried out this recipe and it’s so good!! Perfect texture and not too sweet. So glad I found this.
So glad! This has been a favorite for a long time too. If you bake with maple syrup take a look at my dried cherry granola recipe – it’s delicious! 🙂
I’m amazed by this cake and so are my friends! I grew up baking cakes with my grandmother in the South where it’s sacrilegious to bake without butter, let alone sugar. I didn’t think it was possible until this cake. Wow! None of my friends could believe it was both sugar and butter-free and they loved it! Had a special request for another one. Made it gluten-free, too. A heavenly cake. Thank you for sharing your delicious recipe!
I’m so thrilled to read this; thank you for writing! I’d love to know what you used to make it GF – and was it the same quantity as AP flour or did you have to adjust? Please share and I’ll amend the recipe to include this for others! 🙂
Can I replace eggs in it..what can be used?
That’s a tough one – I’ve used Ener-G and Neat Egg when the recipe calls for 1 egg. But I’ve never tried it with 3 eggs and not in a cake. There are lots of articles on-line for using things like applesauce as substitutes but you need to do a bit of experimenting. If you land on something please share it and I’ll put it in the post! 🙂
Hi Sheri, can I increase the amount of lemon juice? I don’t find it lemony enough. I do like the honey and olive oil notes.
Absolutely!
My 20 year old son doesn’t eat processed food and has been sugar free for 7years. So this year I searched for something special for his birthday and found your recipe. Not only did he love it, I had several requests for the recipe from die hard sugar eaters at his party. One of which was the wife of a man with cancer who wanted something that she could fix for him. Thank you for posting this! It is now a permanent recipe in our household.
This MAKES MY DAY! Thank you so much for writing. I really love when an “alternative” recipe tastes as decadent and delicious as its traditional counterpart. This is one of my favorite cakes and I’m so happy it’s found a home in your kitchen too! 🙂
Hi, thanks for this great recipe. I was searching for a diabetic cake recipe for my uncle who’s celebrating 65th birthday and came here. Tried this out but added red food color because I was going to layer it with honey buttercream icing. Tasted so delicious. How can I post the photo of it?
That’s awesome; I’d LOVE to see a picture! If you’re on Instagram you can take a pic and tag me in it. Or mail it to me at Sheri@sherisilver.com!
I made it using the same recipe ( without the nutmeg) but as a muffin , it made 22 muffins and took about 25 minutes on the oven. My kids LOVED it.Thanks for the recipe.
I would have never thought to turn this cake into muffins – I’m impressed! I will add this to the recipe so that others may try it too; thank you! 🙂
I just tried this recipe and it was great! Though I omitted the dairy, nutmeg, vanilla and lemon zest part. But I still loved it!
I’m so glad! It’s a favorite of ours too! 🙂
This looks fabulous and can’t wait to try it, but am wondering if it will go as nice with mixed spice or cinnamon instead of nutmeg?
Thanks! I feel like the batter is “neutral” enough to work with any spice(s) you like. Let me know if you try it and how it turns out! 🙂
I’m making this cake now and im paring it with a lighter whip cream that has greek yougurt and honey 🙂
Oh nice! This cake is such a favorite; enjoy!
Sadly this recipe is not sugar free as the title claims. Honey is made up of around 75 per cent sugars.
I hear you! If you read the post that introduces this topic (https://sherisilver.com/2013/02/07/take-it-away-sugar-and-a-dairy-recap/) I clarify that I’ll be limiting my sweeteners to “natural ones” – maple syrup, evaporated cane juice and honey. But you’re absolutely right – as far as the body is concerned, sugar is sugar!
I see i can use 2 9″ cake pans by the conversion chart. Has anyone else tried this? I was going to make whip cream for on top which does use some powdered sugar. Has anyone tried a topping?
I never have but imagine it would work! Let me know if you try the whipped cream!
Just made this for a party and it was a huge hit. Wonderful recipe!
I used 1/2 c almond flour, 1 c whole wheat pastry flour and 1 c all purpose. I have also made it with all white whole wheat. Both ways it was great.
I used non-fat yogurt and it was still delicious. Probably even better with full fat!
Thanks. This one is a keeper.
That’s fantastic! LOVE the addition of almond flour, which must have added so much flavor! Thank you so much for sharing!
Looks and sounds delicious! Any thoughts on shipping this cake?
I think if it’s wrapped well it will ship well! It’s very very moist so will not go stale if not eaten for a few days – I think it will work! Let me know!
Hi, your reciepe looks amazing! I am wondering if I can just add fresh blueberries to this cake? Or does that mame the cake to wet?
It’s a good one! I think you can totally add blueberries! What I do when I add fruit is to take a tablespoon of the flour called for in the recipe and toss it with the berries to coat. This inhibits some of the juiciness as the cake bakes. Let me know how it turns out!
Hi Sheri, this recipe sounds amazing! Wondering if I can replace the honey with maple syrup? Trying to make a first (baby friendly) cake and I know babies are not supposed to have honey. Thanks 🙂
I’ve often swapped the 2 but have never done that with this cake. So I can’t guarantee it will work but let me know if you try it! 🙂
Hi, i will try this recipe but can i use vegetable oil instead of olive oil?
Thank you
Hi! I would not substitute – the olive oil has a fruity flavor that is part of the overall taste of the cake. Vegetable oil would definitely affect the taste. Is in an allergy issue?
My sister is diabetic, but why does this cake have 25g of sugar. Would like a sugar free cake for her. Any advice. Tu.
I know – while honey is certainly an improvement over granulated sugar the body doesn’t really see a difference! Unfortunately this blog is not a place to find sugar-free recipes, as that is not my area of expertise. I know many readers have used 1:1 sugar substitutes in my recipes, with great success!
This looks so good! What a great combination of flavors!