This delicious Lemon Raspberry Cake is fresh, zesty and a wonderfully light dessert to enjoy in Spring or Summer. It consists of a deliciously moist lemon cake, with bursts of raspberry throughout and a tart lemon glaze. If you love refreshing flavors, this cake is for you.

lemon raspberry. bundt cake on a cake plate.

Reader Review:

This was amazing! Next level! MAKE IT. I'm making it again right now!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Shawn

This lemon raspberry bundt cake recipe uses fresh lemon zest and freshly squeezed lemon juice, so you don't need any artificial lemon extract. Even though the texture of the cake itself is incredibly moist, there is a sweet lemon glaze poured over the top of the cake just for an added zing of flavor and moisture. The raspberries complement the lemon flavor so beautifully.

This recipe would also work for mini bundt cakes and would look similar to my Mini Blueberry Bundt Cakes, which are another tasty dessert using fruit. I also have an amazing Mini Bundt Cake recipe which makes 6 different flavors of bundt cake with one base recipe! If you love lemon desserts though, you should definitely try out my easy Lemon Drizzle Cake!

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Ingredients for Lemon Raspberry Cake
How To Make Lemon Raspberry Cake
Make the Lemon Icing
Variations on Raspberry Lemon Cake
Storage
More Fruity Desserts
Recipe

Ingredients for Lemon Raspberry Cake

Butter - Unsalted butter is best for this recipe.

Sugar - Regular white sugar is best.

Eggs - Use large eggs and always free-range if you can.

Lemons - Make sure your lemons are unwaxed, you'll know by feeling them, if they have a slightly rubbery feeling on the skin then they are coated in wax. We want to avoid this as we'll be zesting the lemon and don't want to put wax in our cake! If you can't find unwaxed lemons, or you picked up waxed lemons accidentally, soak them in very hot water for a minute and scrub with a clean scrubbing brush to remove the wax. Then rinse with cold water and leave to dry.

Flour - All-purpose flour is great for this recipe, you can also use cake flour if you have it, or self-raising flour (just omit the baking powder and baking soda).

Raspberries - I like to use frozen raspberries in this recipe - unless it's raspberry season, in which case I'll use fresh raspberries. Honestly, either will work well so it's down to what is available and your personal preference. If you are using fresh raspberries, just make sure you are gentle with them when mixing them into the batter so they don't break.

Milk - Whole milk is best but whatever you have will do.

Vanilla Extract - Even though this is a lemon cake, we want to add some vanilla to provide a good flavor baseline for our lemons. Try to use vanilla extract and not vanilla essence.

Icing Sugar - Also known as powdered sugar or confectioners' sugar. This is just for the glaze so if you don't want to glaze your lemon raspberry cake then you won't need this.

Note: Make sure you remove your butter, eggs, and milk from the fridge about an hour before beginning to bake so they can come to room temperature

See recipe card for exact measurements.

Equipment

Bundt Pan - Of course, to make a lemon raspberry bundt cake you will need a bundt pan! The one I used for this recipe is a Nordicware Heritage Bundt Pan, it's cast iron so it's super heavy but always gives great results - plus it's pretty! But you can make this lemon bundt cake with any bundt pan. Mine is a 6 cup bundt pan and there was some room left in the pan.

Zester - you'll also need a zester to zest the lemons.

Mixer - a stand mixer or electric mixer is not necessary but it definitely makes it an easy process!

close up slice of lemon raspberry bundt cake.

How To Make Lemon Raspberry Cake

Prepare your lemons. If you need to de-wax your lemons, do this before you start anything else. (See notes above on how to de-wax lemons).
Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C and grease your bundt pan very well. I use a cake release spray, but you can also use a good cooking spray or butter.
Zest both lemons and put the zest into a small bowl. Then cut them in half squeeze the lemon juice into a separate bowl. Set both aside until later.
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. If you are using a stand mixer, you want to use the paddle attachment, but if not then a hand mixer or a wooden spoon and some elbow grease will do!
Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until completely combined.
Sift the dry ingredients, including the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, into a large bowl.
Add half of the flour mixture to the lemon cake batter and fold in.
Add the milk, fresh lemon juice and lemon zest and mix until completely combined.
Fold in the remaining half of the flour mixture.
Add the raspberries and mix until they are evenly dispersed throughout the cake batter.
Pour batter into your prepared pan and smooth the top so it's level. I used a 10-inch bundt pan and the batter came up to about ⅔ full, which leaves plenty of room (and could even fit more if you wanted it bigger). So this recipe would also fit a 9-inch bundt pan easily.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted comes out clean.
For best results, let the lemon raspberry bundt cake sit in the pan for exactly 10 minutes before trying to remove it from the pan. Invert the bundt cake onto a wire rack.
Let the lemony bundt cake cool completely before trying to decorate or slice. Transfer the cooled cake to a serving plate before icing as the glaze may drip down.

close up of lemon glaze dripping off of raspberry lemon bundt cake

Make the Lemon Icing

To make the lemon icing, add all glaze ingredients into a medium bowl and mix together until there are no lumps, then simply pour over the top of the bundt cake. For a thicker icing, try my vanilla glaze recipe and add some lemon juice.

For a finishing touch, sprinkle some fresh lemon zest over the top of the glaze.

Variations on Raspberry Lemon Cake

Some ideas for easy variations on this lemon raspberry cake recipe:

Lemon Raspberry Layer Cake - You can also bake this lemon bundt cake recipe in a regular round cake pan. Split the batter into two pans and stack them with some delicious cream cheese frosting.
Orange zest and juice instead of lemons
For a simpler bundt cake, you could leave out the raspberries and have it as a plain lemon cake.
For an extra touch, you could swirl some lemon curd or raspberry jam in the middle of the batter, halfway through filling the bundt pan.

close up slices of lemon raspberry bundt cake

Storage

Despite popular opinion, cake is actually NOT best kept in the fridge (unless it has some form of dairy as a frosting or filling). Keep this lemon raspberry bundt cake in an airtight container at room temperature. Place some kitchen towel on the base of the container, underneath the cake to soak up any condensation.

If you don't have an airtight container big enough, you can also tightly wrap the cake in plastic wrap - but make sure you use at least two layers to make sure the cake doesn't dry out.

The cake will keep this way for 3-5 days.