Lemon Yogurt Loaf with Spelt Flour & Honey

Grate the zest first—before you cut the lemon in half. Gets more off that way. Three hundred milliliters of spelt flour, a lemon, Greek yogurt. That’s the whole foundation. Takes twenty-five minutes to throw together, forty to bake. An hour five if you count the cooling.

Why You’ll Love This Lemon Yogurt Cake

Quick to measure. Spelt flour works different than regular flour—it doesn’t get tough the same way, so you can actually fold things in without panicking about dense crumbs.

The lemon yogurt base does something. Not exactly moist. More like—it stays soft for two days. Maybe three if it lasts that long.

Cardamom. Half a teaspoon. Most people skip it. Don’t. Changes everything without tasting like cardamom.

Glaze is optional. Honestly. Cake works plain. Works better with the lime yogurt glaze, but that’s not why you’d make this. You’d make it because it’s easy and tastes like lemon bread but better.

What You Need for Lemon Yogurt Bread

Spelt flour. Not all-purpose. The texture comes from using the right flour. Baking soda—just three-quarter teaspoon, not a full one. That matters.

Greek yogurt. Plain. The tang matters. Two components: one hundred fifty milliliters in the batter, then another two hundred for the glaze if you’re doing that.

One lemon. Fresh. Zest it, juice it. Twenty-five milliliters of juice minimum. Sometimes you get thirty. Depends on the lemon.

Butter—one hundred milliliters softened. Sugar at two hundred milliliters. Honey at thirty. Two eggs. Vanilla extract, five milliliters. Ground cardamom, two milliliters. That’s it.

For the glaze: icing sugar, lime zest, lime juice if you want the tang variation. Skip it if you’re doing straight lemon. Either way works.

How to Make Lemon Yogurt Cake

Oven to 175 Celsius. That’s 345 Fahrenheit if you’re using that. Center rack. Line a loaf pan—twenty-two by twelve centimeters, which is eight and a half by four and a half inches—with parchment. Grease it first. The paper’ll stick better.

Spelt flour, baking soda, cardamom. Whisk those together in a medium bowl. Set it aside. This takes maybe two minutes.

Separate bowl: yogurt, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla. Stir until it looks uniform. No lumps. This is your wet component for the second half.

How to Get Lemon Yogurt Cake Creamy

Large bowl. Butter with sugar and honey. Beat it. Actually beat it—it should go pale and fluffy, maybe two minutes with a mixer. You’re building air in there. Don’t skip this step.

Add eggs one at a time. Mix after each one. The batter might look weird in the middle. Like it’s breaking. Keep going. It comes together after the second egg.

Now the alternating part. Dry stuff, then wet stuff, then dry, then wet, ending with dry. Fold gently each time. This is where you actually can’t overmix—spelt flour gets tough if you’re aggressive with it. The batter should look almost pebbled at first, then smooth out as you fold.

Spoon into the pan. Smooth the top with a spatula so it bakes even. Set the timer for forty minutes.

You’ll know it’s done when a wooden skewer poked in the middle comes out with moist crumbs. Not wet batter. Crumbs. That’s the difference. Forty minutes usually does it. Sometimes forty-two if your oven runs cool.

Lemon Yogurt Cake Tips and Common Mistakes

Pull it out. Let it cool in the pan for ten minutes—don’t skip this or it falls apart. Use the parchment edges to lift it onto a wire rack. Cool completely. This takes maybe an hour. You can’t glaze it warm or the glaze melts off.

If the top cracks, don’t panic. It always cracks a little. Glaze covers it.

The texture should be tender, not dense. If yours came out dense, you probably overmixed. Next time, fold less. Seriously. Stop folding when you can barely see dry flour.

Honey instead of all sugar does something specific—keeps it moist longer. Don’t swap for maple. Maple changes the lemon flavor.

Cardamom is essential. Not optional. If you don’t have it, this is just lemon bread. With it, it’s something else.

Lime glaze is a variation that works. Greek yogurt base, icing sugar, lime zest and juice. Some people like it better than straight lemon. Try both ways.

Lemon Yogurt Loaf with Spelt Flour & Honey

By Emma

Prep:

25 min

Cook:

40 min

Total:

1h 5min

Servings:

8 servings

Ingredients

• 300 ml (1 ¼ cup) spelt flour
• 4 ml (¾ tsp) baking soda
• 150 ml (⅔ cup) plain Greek yogurt
• 1 lemon, zest grated
• 25 ml (1 ½ tbsp) fresh lemon juice
• 100 ml (7 tbsp) softened unsalted butter
• 200 ml (⅞ cup) granulated sugar
• 30 ml (2 tbsp) honey
• 2 whole eggs
• 5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract
• 2 ml (½ tsp) ground cardamom
• Glaze (optional)
• 200 ml (¾ cup) plain Greek yogurt
• 30 ml (2 tbsp) icing sugar
• 1 lime, zest grated
• 20 ml (1 ½ tbsp) lime juice

Method

1. 1 Move oven rack center. Heat oven to 175 C (345 F). Grease and line 22 x 12 cm (8 ½ x 4 ½ inch) loaf pan with parchment paper.
2. 2 Blend together spelt flour, baking soda, cardamom in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. 3 Mix yogurt, lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla in a separate small bowl until uniform.
4. 4 In another large bowl, beat butter with sugar and honey until creamy. Add eggs one by one, mixing well after each addition. Ignore the urge to rush.
5. 5 Shift dry ingredients into butter mix gradually; alternate with yogurt mix. Stir until just combined. Avoid overmixing or dense.
6. 6 Spoon batter evenly into loaf pan. Smooth surface with spatula. Set timer for 40 minutes; bake until wooden skewer poked in middle comes out clean with moist crumbs attached.
7. 7 Take out oven, let cool in pan 10 minutes. Then lift cake from pan using parchment edges. Cool completely on wire rack before applying glaze or slicing.
8. Glaze Whisk Greek yogurt, icing sugar, lime zest, and juice until creamy and spreadable. Dollop or thinly spread over cooled loaf. Tiny tang variation with lime replaces lemon topping.
9. 8 Cut into thick slices. Serve plain or with glaze. Store wrapped at room temperature up to two days or chilled for four.

Nutritional information

Calories

300

Protein

5g

Carbs

38g

Fat

14g

Print Recipe Save to Pinterest

Frequently Asked Questions About Lemon Yogurt Cake

Can I use all-purpose flour instead of spelt? Yeah. Won’t be exactly the same. Spelt’s gentler. All-purpose gets tougher if you fold it wrong. You’ll have to be more careful.

How long does this last? Two days at room temperature wrapped in foil. Four days in the fridge. Tastes better on day two actually. The lemon soaks in.

Can I make this without the glaze? It’s fine plain. The cake doesn’t need it. Glaze makes it fancier but not better. Do whatever.

What if I don’t have cardamom? Don’t make a substitution. Just leave it out if you don’t have it. Adding something else changes the whole thing. It’s not the same cake.

Does the pan size matter? Yeah. Twenty-two by twelve centimeters is specific because the bake time depends on it. Wider pan = dries out faster. Smaller pan = takes longer. If you have a different size, check it at thirty-five minutes and adjust from there.

Can I use lemon extract instead of fresh lemon? No. Extract tastes like chemicals next to fresh juice and zest. Not worth the swap.

Should I use the lime glaze or regular lemon? Lime’s a twist. Less expected. Lemon’s safer if you’ve never made this. Both work. The lime one’s more interesting if you like tang.