Copycat Starbucks iced lemon pound cake tastes fabulous, and has no chemicals, strange additives or preservatives. Why go to Starbucks and pay for a slice when you can make an entire loaf that’s much healthier for about the same price?
We rarely go to Starbucks, but when we do, my daughter loves to get a slice of their iced lemon pound cake.
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So as an after-school surprise, I thought I’d make her a copycat Starbucks homemade version, which she’d also be able to take to school in her lunch. I started my baking endeavor by looking at the ingredients in Starbucks’ own lemon cake. I must say, I was extremely disappointed after reading the list. Let’s just say we’ll be skipping the pound cake purchases in future— just take a look at this~
Starbucks Iced Lemon Pound Cake Ingredients
Sugar, bleached enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin and folic acid), egg, unsalted butter (pasteurized cream), powdered sugar (sugar, cornstarch), water, lemon juice (lemon juice from concentrate (water, concentrated lemon juice), sodium benzoate, sodium metabisulfate and sodium sulfite (preservatives), lemon oil), vegetable shortening (palm and canola oil), emulsifier (propylene esters, mono-diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate, tricalcium phosphate), nonfat milk, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, corn starch, monocalcium phosphate), food starch – modified, natural flavor, salt, icing base (dextrose, stearic acid, agar agar, salt, pectin, guar gum, sodium hexametaphosphate), corn syrup, natural butter flavor (maltodextrin, natural butter flavor, annatto and turmeric (for color)), vital wheat gluten, guar gum, xanthan gum, natural lemon oil, beta carotene wsp (maltodextrin, glucose syrup, gum arabic, vegetable oil, tocopherol, vitamin c, beta carotene pure, silicon dioxide), titanium dioxide, pan spray (soy lecithin, [contains one or more of the following: canola oil, palm oil, soybean oil, natural flavor, mineral oil])
I don’t know about you, but this just puts me right off. Can you imagine making this in your own kitchen? Even the icing, which could easily be made of sugar, water and lemon juice, has sodium hexametaphosphate in it. The FDA claims it is “generally recognized as safe”. Generally? Hmmm, no thanks. If I can’t make it in my kitchen, I’ll pass.
You will probably also enjoy this beautifully moist Sicilian Whole Orange Cake recipe, too.
Now let me tell you about the Copycat Starbucks iced lemon pound cake I made, and you can easily make in your kitchen–it’s so much better! Honest! Why? Because it tastes like Starbucks’ pound cake without all the junk ingredients, that’s why. I hope you enjoy it–my daughter did!
I also made a loaf for a Downton Abbey party for her and her friends and they LOVED the copycat Starbucks pound cake!
For another recipe, try this whole Meyer lemon bundt cake recipe which uses the rind and all. You can choose to glaze or ice it, too.
You won’t regret making this cake, I can almost guarantee it!
Copycat Starbucks Iced Lemon Pound Cake
adapted from Cook’s Illustrated Simplifying Lemon Pound Cake serves 12
Ingredients (compare to the list above!)
- 1 1/2 cups (7.5 oz) cake flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup (2 sticks) (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup (8 oz) sugar
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice, preferably Meyer lemon
- zest of one lemon, preferably organic Meyer lemon
- 8 to 10 drops of pure lemon oil
Icing
- 1 cup (4.25 oz) confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
- about 3 tsp. lemon juice and water to make a runny glaze
Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and butter and flour a standard size loaf tin (about 5.5″ x 9.5″) and set aside.
Make the Batter for the Better Than Starbucks Iced Lemon Loaf
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.
Cream room temperature butter and sugar in mixer, scraping down the sides once or twice.
Add one egg, and mix well, then add about 2 tbsp of flour until blended. Continue with the rest of the eggs, and a little flour, scraping the sides of the bowl from time to time.
Now add the vanilla, lemon juice, lemon rind and lemon oil, and mix well.
Remove bowl from mixer and gently fold in the remaining flour with a spatula.
Place cake batter into prepared loaf pan and put into preheated oven for 15 minutes. Afterwards, lower the temperature to 325ºF (150ºC) and continue to bake for another 40 to 45 minutes, or until tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
My first cake fell in the center as it wasn’t finished baking when I checked it at 35 minutes, so you will just have to use trial and error to see how your oven bakes.
Let cool for 15 minutes, then remove from pan and place on rack to cool completely.
When cool, prepare the icing, if desired.
Just mix the confectioner’s sugar and lemon and water until smooth.
Spread or drizzle over cooled cake…
letting it drip down the sides.
Allow the icing to dry/set before cutting the cake with a serrated knife.
Oh, and one last thing: click the 5 stars in the recipe card if you think this copycat cake is way better than Starbucks Iced Lemon Pound Cake, thank you!!
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Way Better Than Starbucks Iced Lemon Pound Cake!
A lovely lemon pound cake similar to the one served at Starbucks without the massive number of incomprehensible ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (7.5 oz) cake flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup (2 sticks) (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup (8 oz) sugar
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice, preferably Meyer lemon
- rind of one lemon, preferably organic Meyer lemon
- 8 to 10 drops of pure lemon oil
- 1 cup (4.25 oz) confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
- about 3 tsp. lemon juice and water to make a runny glaze
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and butter and flour a loaf tin/pan and set aside.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.
- Cream room temperature butter and sugar in mixer, scraping down the sides once or twice.
- Add one egg, and mix well, then add about 2 tbsp of flour until blended. Continue with the rest of the eggs, and a little flour, scraping the sides of the bowl from time to time.
- Now add the vanilla, lemon juice, lemon rind and lemon oil, and mix well.
- Remove bowl from mixer and gently fold in the remaining flour with a spatula. Place cake batter into prepared loaf pan and put into preheated oven for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 325ºF (150ºC) and continue to bake for another 40 to 45 minutes, or until tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let cool for 15 minutes, then remove from pan and place on rack to cool completely. When cool, prepare the icing, if desired.
- Just mix the confectioner’s sugar and lemon and water until smooth. Spread or drizzle over cooled cake, letting it drip down the sides.
- Allow the icing to dry/set before cutting the cake with a serrated knife.
Notes
See my other lemon loaf recipe that's gluten free.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 14 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving:Calories: 102Total Fat: 3gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 55mgSodium: 105mgCarbohydrates: 15gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 3g
Nutrition information is only estimated.
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I’ve really enjoyed reading the recipes on your site and hope to make some of them soon, but after reading this article, I’m seriously disappointed in you. on other pages, you’ve stated how angry it makes you when [uneducated] people make unflattering comments about British or Scottish foods. Yet here you are making uneducated comments about someone’s food. You’ve even gone so far as to condemn the cake as unhealthy. Let’s look at just 2 of the ingredients in your “healthy” recipe.
Baking powder: Sodium bicarbonate + an acid.
Commonly used leavening acids in baking powder are Mono-Calcium phosphate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, and tartaric acid.
Fast-acting: systems such as sodium bicarbonate + monocalcium phosphate monohydrate
Slow-acting: sodium bicarbonate + sodium pyrophosphate
Double-acting: sodium aluminium sulfate (SAS) + monocalcium phosphate (MCP).
https://bakerpedia.com/ingredients/baking-powder/
Cornstarch:
Starch is a polysaccharide comprising glucose monomers joined in α 1,4 linkages. The simplest form of starch is the linear polymer amylose; amylopectin is the branched form.
https://www.britannica.com/science/starch
The IUPAC name for cornstarch is: 5-[(5-{[3,4-dihydroxy-6-(hydroxymethyl)-5-methoxyoxan-2-yl]oxy}-6-({[3,4-dihydroxy-6-(hydroxymethyl)-5-methoxyoxan-2-yl]oxy}methyl)-3,4-dihydroxyoxan-2-yl)oxy]-6-(hydroxymethyl)-2-methyloxane-3,4-diol (yes, I can pronounce that.)
https://www.molinstincts.com/formula/Cornstarch-cfml-CT1087471098.html
Chemical names look scary to the uneducated just like steak and kidney pie or haggis sound disgusting to people who’ve never had them, but literally everything has a hard-to-pronounce scientific name. It’s those scientific names that the FDA mandates go on labels.
The most unhealthy ingredients in that Starbucks cake are the sodium, the saturated fat and the sugar (all of which are also in your cake.)
I almost deleted your comment without reading it as it appeared like a common spam post. I don’t mind you critiquing the recipe (it’s not even mine), but your attack on me is unwarranted. It seems that you are upset with me calling out the fact that the Starbucks cake has lots of processed ingredients and chemicals (which don’t belong in food). Your comments are rude and condescending, and I don’t take kindly to being spoken to like a child.
I’m not chemiphobic, or completely uneducated, as you insinuate. I do not claim to have a background in science or chemistry, however, you failed to even mention that the quantity of ingredients makes a difference. Water can be toxic if one drinks too much. That said, I would not eat the Starbucks cake, or feed it to my family simply due to the inclusion of corn syrup and canola, palm and vegetable oils. I also never claimed my recipe is “healthy”, it’s just better.
One does not need to know the detailed chemical composition of every ingredient to know whether to avoid it or not. Everyone has their own limits on what they’re willing to ingest in their diets, and I happen to feel better avoiding highly processed foods, and baked goods from places like Starbucks. Why have you sent the chemical make up of baking soda as if I don’t know that every single ingredient has a chemical composition? If you don’t believe that there is a problem in the US with the FDA allowing an excess of preservatives, artificial colors, flavors and toxic chemicals (yes, toxic) in our food, and then we cannot come to any sort of agreement. Many ingredients that are considered “generally safe” (whatever THAT means) are banned in other countries. Why are you defending these ingredients?
If you choose to eat the Starbucks cake, no one is stopping you. However, for you to berate me as you have on MY site is uncalled for. I suggest you create your own website and add your chemical listings, and encourage others to ingest these ingredients in processed foods. I can guarantee I won’t be popping over to tell you how disappointed I am in you, and how uneducated you are, no matter what I think.
It seems that people on the internet feel they can say things behind a mask of anonymity that they would never say to someone in person, so I would also suggest you take a few minutes to read my post on commenting.
I absolutely love lemons and love pound cake. I have 5 decorative Bundt pans that I use to make them pretty! Have not made this yet but when I get some lemons it will be first on my list. Also wanting to make some key lime pie with Meyer lemons. Been a long time since I had a slice! Thank you for this recipe and all the other wonderful recipes you provide here and on Facebook !!❤️
I found that this cake took an extra 15 min to cook. I may have had a little more lemons juice and I folded in a cup of fresh blueberries as well. So I’ll hold off judging until I make it again. Yes I will. Anyhow I think that if you have added too much lemon juice I would add 2 tbsp of poppy seeds to the flour and it would counteract the extra liquid. Keep on baking folks.
Thanks, Wendy! Yes, and every oven is different, too. I advise having an oven thermometer to make sure the oven is calibrated properly, as well. Hope you enjoy it!
I cannot find cake flour, can I use regular all purpose flour.
Here’s what you can do: remove 3 Tbsp of flour after measuring/weighing it. Add 3 Tbsp of corn starch. Sift the flour and cornstarch together and proceed with the recipe. Enjoy, Seeta! :)
I love lemon cake. I bought Meter lemons yesterday. So I can’t wait to make this. But what size of loaf tin do you use? Thank you bb
Hi Jean, a standard size (about 5.5″ x 9.5″). Let me know how it turns out! :)
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