Extra Moist Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake (Nonna’s Recipe)

When a sweet craving calls, there’s nothing better than a slice of moist lemon olive oil cake with a hot cup of tea.

Welcome, friend. I’m Alessia, the writer and founder behind Italy with an Italian.

Baking a homemade cake is one of life’s simple joys. It’s a wonderful way to slow down, rest your mind, and create something truly delicious to share with the people you love. I like to call it my dolce vita hour.

And spring is the perfect time to bake a fragrant lemon olive oil cake. This classic Italian dessert, known as torta al limone, is wonderfully moist, light, and incredibly easy to make.

Every Italian grandma has her own version — and today, I’m sharing my nonna’s recipe.

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Get To Know This Lemon Olive Oil Cake

It’s only fair you get to know your cake before you bake it, much like dating before marrying :). 

Joking aside, I’d like to take a moment to share with you what’s to love about my Italian lemon olive oil cake recipe. With so many recipes out there, you want to make sure you are picking the right one.

Here are all the reasons why I love this cake, and why I believe you’ll love it too.

1. It’s lemony but not in an overpowering way. This is very important, right? If you are baking a lemon cake you surely want it to taste like lemons, and most likely fresh ones, not artificial essence. We are not using any lemon essence in this lemon cake.
   
2. It’s super moist. My nonna’s recipe was already very moist, but I tweaked slightly to make this lemon cake even moister. Wait till you slice into it!
   
3. It uses 10 genuine ingredients. While it might not be the most minimal cake ever, this cake uses only high quality genuine ingredients. All of them are easily available, even the secret ingredient I use for baking all my cakes. You can find that one on Amazon. Don’t worry, I will link it for you, and even give you an alternative you likely have in your pantry.
   
4. It’s easy and fairly quick to make. All my olive oil cake recipes are! That way, you can make the most of your dolce vita baking hour, and even clean your kitchen while your cake is baking.
   
5. It doubles as a cake and a dessert. Because it’s so moist, this is not just a cake you slice and enjoy for breakfast or tea time. You can also slice it and serve it for dessert, perhaps with a lemon curd, or a scoop of vanilla or white chocolate ice cream.

Moist Italian Lemon Cake Ingredients

Now that you know all of that, here are the ingredients you need to go get. If you’ve made any of my other cakes, you likely have them all sitting in your pantry.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – As we are making an olive oil cake, I’d like to start with one of the key ingredients, one that gets often overlooked. The quality of your olive oil can make or break your lemon olive oil cake. That’s why I always suggest you use extra virgin olive oil, because it’s a cleaner ingredient and tastes so much better. Here’s the one I use for all my baking and cooking.

Lemons – Of course, we need lemons to make a lemon olive oil cake, or at least so one hopes. Not all recipes include real lemons; many will use a lemon essence. We will only be using lemon juice and lemon zest.

Sugar – If you have baked with me before, you know I like to use coconut sugar. However, regular white table sugar is fine. You can also use honey or agave. I will give you the exact quantities for each option under the variations section.

Eggs – This is not a vegan cake, so we are using eggs. It’s what makes the cake so rich and tender. If you are using your own chickens’ eggs, that’s even better.

Greek Yogurt – This is my grandma’s special ingredient for her moist cakes. I know that many people use it too, but it was her that taught it to my mum and me. And it truly makes the difference in the texture. It adds creaminess and makes the cake extra moist, especially when paired with olive oil.

Flour – While we could make a flourless lemon cake, this is not that kind of recipe, so flour is essential here. I always use 00 flour for my recipes. I actually wanted to test a different flour for this recipe, but it wasn’t in stock. We’ll try that next time. This is the flour I always use for baking cakes, tarts, breads, pizza, and much more.

Potato Starch – We call it fecola di patate in Italian. This is going to make our cake crumb extra fluffy and moist, while making sure it still holds together beautifully. If you can’t find it, I will also give you an adjusted flour quantity.

Vanilla essence – I always use the powdered version of Bourbon vanilla, but you can also use the pod. In that case, half or even less is enough.

Salt – A pinch of salt truly goes a long way when it comes to cakes and baking in general, so make sure you don’t skip it.

Italian Baking Mix – This is the secret ingredient I mentioned earlier. It’s the baking mix my Italian grandma used to use, and so do most Italians. You can shop it on Amazon here. I will give you a replacement, in case you don’t want to buy it. I suggest you try it as it has a special vanilla flavor that makes cakes extra tasty.

Exact Ingredients Quantities:

Wet ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 150 gr coconut sugar (1 cup) – Use white sugar or 50 gr extra if you like an extra sweet cake.
• 1/2 teaspoon Bourbon vanilla powder
• 100 ml EVOO
• 300 gr Greek Yogurt plain (2 small containers)
• Juice of 2 lemons

Dry ingredients: 

• 200 gr flour 00 (1.5 cups + 2 tbsp)
• 133 gr potato starch (3/4 cups)
• 16gr Lievito per Dolci (or 2 teaspoons baking powder + 1/2 teaspoon baking soda)
• a pinch of salt
• Zest of 2 lemons

Finishing ingredients:

• Powdered sugar for dusting

Equipment Needed

• 2 large bowls
• 1 electric handheld mixer (this is very similar to mine)
• 1 spatula
• A few tablespoons
• A knife
• A citrus presser or juicer
• 1 baking dish
• baking paper
• 1 poking stick

How To Make This Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake

The steps to make this recipe are similar to all my olive oil cakes, so if you have baked one before it will all be very familiar. But if you haven’t, it’s still going to be very easy.

First things first, scroll back up and look at the ingredients list.

I have purposefully divided it into two groups: wet and dry.

This way, you know that all your wet ingredients go in one bowl, and all your dry ingredients go in the other bowl.

Once you have added all of them, you can then combine the two.

The one thing I suggest adding at the end is the lemon zest.

Combine the wet ingredients in one bowl:

Crack the eggs.

Add the sugar and the vanilla.

Use an electric handheld mixer to beat the two ingredients in your large bowl.

Add the extra virgin olive oil and beat again. You can add it into two or three parts, and beat after each time.

Next, add the Greek yogurt, and mix again.

Grate the zest of two lemons and set aside into a plate or bowl.

Once you have grated both lemons, wash them and dry them. Cut them in half and juice them.

Make sure there are no seeds, and add the juice to your bowl with the wet ingredients. Mix one final time using your electric hand mixer.

Mix the dry ingredients in your second bowl:

It’s time to mix your flour and potato starch. You would ideally pass each one through a sifter, but this is not mandatory.

Add a pinch of salt, and the baking mix.

Mix all the ingredients well.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients:

Take the dry flour mix and add it to your wet ingredients, divided into three parts.

Mix the batter after you add each part of the dry ingredients.

When you have finished adding all your dry ingredients, you can delicately fold in your lemon zest with a spatula. If you’ve done it earlier, then your lemon olive oil cake batter is ready.

Prepare the cake for baking:

Turn on the oven to preheat it. I preheated mine at 180 °C or 350 °F for 10 to 15 minutes.

In the meantime, you can oil and flour your dish, or you can add a piece of parchment paper.

Then, pour the batter into the dish. Hit it gently against your countertop to release any air bubbles, and wait for the oven to preheat.

When the pre-heating time has passed, you can put your cake dish in the oven, ideally in the lower or middle level. That will avoid it from browning too much too soon.

Bake it for 50 minutes to one hour. Your poking stick doesn’t need to come completely clean, since this is a creamier cake. But it must not be raw either.

Finish your lemon olive oil cake:

Once your cake is out of the oven, take it out of the dish, and put it on your serving plate of choice or on a baking rack. 

Then, dust it generously with powdered sugar.

If you’d like to serve it with a lemon curd or drizzle, here’s a simple recipe for making those.

How To Make An Easy Lemon Cream & Lemon Drizzle (Optional)

You can use the lemon cream inside your cake, on top, or on the side. The drizzle is to cover the top, in case that’s how you want it.

Lemon cream:

• 250 ml milk
• 1 egg
• A piece of lemon peel
• 50 gr sugar
• 15 gr corn starch
• Juice of half a lemon
• Zest of half a lemon

You’ll need two small pots. The process is similar to the one for making bechamel sauce.

In one pot, you’ll heat up the milk with your lemon peel.

In the second pot, you’ll crack the egg, the sugar, and the starch.

When the milk is very hot, remove the lemon peel, and pour it slowly into your pot with the egg mixture. You want to keep whisking as you pour the milk. Take the pot off the heat as you pour the milk into it. 

Once you have poured all the milk, put the pot again on the stove, and keep whisking for 5 minutes or until your cream starts forming. It should go from liquid to a thick creamy texture.

When it does, take it off the heat, and add the lemon juice and zest. Mix delicately and your lemon cream is ready.

Lemon sugar drizzle: 

• 200 gr icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Use a regular whisk to mix the two ingredients until you achieve a smooth drizzle.

Note that my lemon drizze came a little too runny because I decided to add three tablespoons of lemon juice instead of two. Yours will be fine as I have adjusted the recipe above.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake Variations & Storage

If you can get your hands on all the ingredients, and are not intolerant to any of them, I truly suggest you try this recipe without any tweaking. It’s really delicious.

That said, if you need or want to change any of the ingredients, here are a few suggestions and replacements.

Vegan: This cake includes eggs, and it’s them that makes any cake so moist and fluffy. However, if you are vegan you can test this recipe with the flax egg replacement. Replace every egg with one flax egg – 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds mixed with 3 tablespoons room temperature water. Replace the Greek yogurt with a non dairy option.

Gluten free: I haven’t done much testing when it comes to gluten free baking. I like to use gluten free flour for crepes and pancakes, even wraps and pita bread, but not so much cakes. Nonetheless, your gluten free all purpose flour cake should be a good replacement for the 00 flour. And you can use the potato starch along that, since the latter is naturally gluten free.

No Italian baking mix: If you don’t want to purchase the Italian baking mix that most Italians use, including grandmas, you can replace it like this: 2 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp baking soda.

Sugar replacements: If you are using white sugar, you can use the same quantity as coconut sugar. The same holds for brown sugar. If you are using either honey, maple syrup, or agave, use 110 gr.

How To Store Your Lemon Olive Oil Cake

If your cake has no cream, you can keep it on the counter for a few days, provided it’s not very hot. 

Just make sure you store it properly. I like to store my cakes covered with some baking powder, or kitchen roll, and then wrapped in a clean kitchen towel.

You could also refrigerate it, but that it will dry it out a little. Warming up your slice in the oven will make it moist again, but not as moist as it came out of the oven. Storing it in the fridge is the best option when it’s either too hot, or you won’t eat the cake in the next two days.

Want To Bake Another Italian Olive Oil Cake?

If you love olive oil cakes, or just moist cakes in general, I am happy to inform you that I have plenty of them already on my blog. 

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Orange Olive Oil Cake (similar to a mud cake and with chocolate)

Healthy Banana Bread With Olive Oil

Pumpkin Bread With Olive Oil, Amaretti Streusel & Healthy Frosting

I will also be making and sharing many new flavors during the course of this year. So please bookmark this page, and don’t forget to pin it on your Pinterest baking board too.

Share this recipe with your friends. It helps my little blog grow. Thank you so much for that.

If you like my recipes, or want to chat with me directly, I welcome you to join my newsletter – Buona Settimana. You’ll receive it every Sunday, and it’s like chatting with your Italian friend about food, fashion, travel, and life. You can join by signing up through one of the boxes on this page.

I hope to see you there.

A presto,
Alessia