Lemon Yogurt Breakfast Cake, or Ciambella, is a classic Italian style lemon bundt cake with lots of lemony flavor and a delicate crumb. Pair it with a good cup of coffee and you’ve got the start to a great day. It’s an ideal bake for a brunch or luncheon.
lemon yogurt cake is a breakfast treat
Not to be confused with dessert, this gorgeous cake is a classic Italian style breakfast cake. It’s not overly sweet, with a subtle lemon flavor, just like it would be served in Italy. The cake is soft and pillowy, and the lemony flavor shines through beautifully, ~ it just begs for a perfect cup of espresso to go along with. A little jam, lemon curd, or a nice dunk in your coffee wouldn’t be a bad idea either. I’m convinced this is what breakfast was meant to be.
simple ingredients you’ll probably have in your kitchen
- eggs
- sugar
- full fat yogurt ~ yogurt makes a cake moist and tender.
- lemons ~ you’ll use the juice and the all important zest.
- vegetable oil ~ I choose a mild one like canola, but the Italians will sometimes use olive oil.
- flour
- baking powder, salt
This Italian style lemon pound cake is a nice change from the oil soaked coffee shop lemon pound cakes, and there’s something very elegant and not at all decadent about this recipe. The flavors of Italian ciambelle are as varied as bundt cakes here in the US, but citrus is one of the favorites. This recipe includes fresh lemon juice as well as zest, and definitely don’t skip the zest, it may seem like a small addition, but the flavor impact is huge. The oils in the peel hold most of the lemon’s flavor.
why do I serve this lemon bundt cake rough side up?
Most bundt cakes are removed from the pan and served with the smooth, rounded side up. I prefer the rough side for a couple of reasons: the texture is not only pretty, it catches the powdered sugar nicely. If I choose to add a glaze or syrup to the cake, it will sink into the craggy surface easily, too. It’s the way the Italians serve it.
tips for baking lemon yogurt breakfast cake
- Invest in a good sturdy nonstick bundt pan, they aren’t expensive. I like Nordic Ware, they’ve been around for ages. You can also use a traditional ring shaped pan for a more authentic look.
- Whatever pan you choose, you must butter it well, getting in all the nooks and crannies, and then dust with flour, shaking off the excess. It really makes a difference. I find cooking spray does not give the same results so I always butter and flour.
- For the best texture, beat your eggs well. The air you beat into them helps the cake rise. I used my stand mixer with the whisk attachment to mix this cake.
- Once you add your dry ingredient, don’t over mix, blend just until everything is combined.
- Check your cake on the early side, because you don’t want to over cook.
- Let your cooked cake cool for about 10 minutes, then loosen around the edges with a thin spreading knife before flipping over.
- If you’re yearning for a moister cake, I’d recommend adding a glaze to the top while it’s still warm. The glaze will sink in and add lots of moisture, as well as an intense hit of lemon. I’ve added instructions below. I like it both ways.
tvfgi recommends: a great basic bundt pan
Bundt pans come in all sorts of wonderful shapes and sizes, which is great, except that you never know how your pan is going to work with a specific recipe. I like to use this one from Wilton which is a basic, all purpose pan that’s sturdy, nonstick, and a standard size. The simple fluted shape insures an easy release, and isn’t that what it’s all about?
“It is the 3rd time I’ve baked this cake, and it only makes me bake more! It is really the best cake ever to dip in coffee, call it “continental breakfast in style” and …..have a second slice! Thank you, Sue!“
Alexandra
Lemon Yogurt Breakfast Cake
Equipment
- standard 10-12 cup bundt cake
Ingredients
dry ingredients
- 2 cups (or 250 grams) all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
wet ingredients
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 3/4 cups (or 157 grams) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (180 grams) full fat yogurt
- zest from 1 or 2 lemons
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh squeezed lemon juice, zest your lemon before juicing!
- 3/4 cup (175 ml) vegetable oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F
- Butter and flour a standard 9 inch bundt pan.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.
- Beat the eggs for 2 minutes until pale and thick. Gradually beat in the sugar.
- Blend in the rest of the wet ingredients and mix well.
- Fold in the dry ingredients and mix just until completely blended.
- Turn the batter into the pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, until just beginning to turn golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out without wet batter clinging to it. Don’t over bake.
- Let the cake cool on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out. I like to flip it over so the rough edge faces up. Let cool completely before dusting with sugar.
Notes
- You can substitute sour cream for the yogurt.
- Use melted butter in place of vegetable oil.
- Want to make this cake into a super decadent experience? Serve it with some homemade clotted cream.
- Add a lemon syrup ~ If you’d like to add extra lemon flavor, plus moisture to this cake, made a lemon syrup to pour over the warm cake: heat 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice and 1/3 cup sugar in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved. Let cool. After you have removed the cake from the pan, poke holes all over the top with a skewer. Spoon the syrup over the top, letting it sink into the holes.
- Add a lemon glaze ~ Mix 1 cup confectioner’s sugar with enough fresh lemon juice to make a spreadable glaze. Drizzle or spread over the cooled cake.
- You can use milk, cream, or buttermilk in place of the yogurt.
- For an authentic Italian flavor try using olive oil (pure, not extra virgin) for the vegetable oil.
Nutrition
This cake was SO good. I had to adapt it slightly for my friend is gluten-free. I used a “cup-for-cup” gluten-free flour blend from King Arthur. I didn’t have any yogurt so I used the heavy cream I had on hand. I was concerned about the gluten-free flour making the cake too dense/dry, so I used plenty of glaze…and it was all fabulous. It was a huge hit at the gathering, and the host asked for the recipe! I even had a little left over to bring home to my dad, who ate it with gusto and requested a second batch. Definitely a keeper. Thanks, Sue!
Planning to make this later in the week, after our orange cake is finished. I have a small jar of lemon curd which needs to be used pretty quickly. Do you think it would work for me to pour half the batter, spoon some lemon curd over, then pour the remaining batter? I’ll make it either way because it sounds so good!
I don’t see why that wouldn’t work, let us know!
Made it today with the lemon curd in the center. Did almost everything else according to your recipe. (The one exception was using a gluten free flour blend!) My husband even went for a second piece. Thank you for a super quick, easy, and delicious cake that I’ll definitely make again.
Thank you! What a fantastic lemony cake .. we topped with both syrup and drizzle….packs a wonderful lemon punch ?
Nice, love the double lemon action 🙂
It’s a pretty good recipe. I liked this cake as much as my favorite one on youtube which turns out really fluffy and flavorful.
I’m glad it was a hit for you Lara 🙂
Fantastic recipe. I was looking for a coffee cake recipe ideally one that would use up a bunch of lemons a customer gave me. And I made it with my rice cooker. Came out beautiful. Moist and lemony and light. Will definitely make it again.
Delicious – I added 3 eggs instead of 2, lemon and orange zest, juice of 1 orange, full cup of yogurt, 1 teaspoon Baking Soda and 1 baking powder, 1 c wheat instead of white flour. The color was this beautiful golden hue from the flour and extra egg. Superb crumb. Delicious, not too sweet, oh and I added blueberries to half the batter – that was a favorite add and we’ll definitely do this again! Wish I could add a pic. Nicely done!
Yummy!
Hi Sue, planning to try your recipe this weekend as it looks wonderful. Are you please able to provide the measurements for the flour, sugar, oil etc in grams? I’m from the UK and not sure whether one cup of flour is the same amount as one cup of sugar/oil etc! Thanks so much
Hey Lucy ~ that’s such a tough question, I don’t have the ability to do this automatically, and doing it for each recipe would be way too time consuming for me. I am working on a solution, but for now, I’d suggest this easy article that will give you the conversions for all the basics:http://allrecipes.co.uk/how-to/44/cooking-conversions.aspx
Hope this helps, and I hope to have an auto convert function on my recipes soon, but, as you can imagine, unless it’s really good, it can cause more harm than good!
Crikey, has no idea the cup measurements were so complicated! The link looks great, thank you and will give it a try at our school bake sale.
It’s surprisingly tricky to convert between the two systems, and very frustrating!
I made this the other day to try a new yogurt based coffee cake type recipe. It was not good at all! Way too heavy. There’s something very wrong with the ingredient proportions and with this type of cake you don’t want to have a thick sugar and egg mixture at the beginning that’s only good for cookies, better off mixing yogurt and eggs first then adding sugar but I suggest going with a French classic yogurt cake recipe: using your individual portioned yogurt cup as a measuring cup, (approximately 25 grams) and just mixing everything together at once nice and simple !
1 plain yogurt portion
2 portions of sugar
3 portions of flour
1/2 portion of vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
For lemon follow your initial recipe : zest of 2 lemons and 1/4 cup juice.
This cake is dense, like a pound cake, but not heavy, in my experience AK, not sure why you had that result.
Don’t you just hate it when someone hijacks your blog with their own recipe. I mean if you don’t like it as written, carry on. I think it sounds fabulous and will bake it tomorrow
Couldn’t agree more! Bit of a cheek! Sue you were very kind in response. Maybe AK hadn’t read all the many positive comments by people who had cooked the cake successfully to your Recipe with great success. My turn tomorrow….many thanks!
The egg/sugar mixture should not be thick. It needs to be whipped until light in color, and will have a smooth, ribbon like consistency.
great recipe! I doubled the recipe and replaced the lemon with orange , very delicious!
I was wondering if I can replace the oil with melted butter? if so, what would be difference once baked?
thank you for sharing the recipe!
I haven’t tried it with melted butter, but you can substitute it in a 1 to 1 ratio. Report back if you try it Lilliane 🙂
I made this cake for breakfast this morning and substituted, like you said, one to one, unsalted, melted butter. It worked beautifully. The cake had a surprisingly lovely, light texture. I used generous teaspoons of baking powder, and Greek yogurt. Amazing! Served with blueberry and marionberry jam and more butter.
That’s so great to hear Rachel, I know a lot of people prefer to bake with butter, and it’s good to know that the lovely texture remained, I think that has something to do with the yogurt. Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for coming back to give your feedback!
Yum……gonna try this with grapefruit! Thank you.
Great idea, I want to try that too.