Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle Cake
, Updated Dec 05, 2025
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Bake the perfect Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle Cake following my easy recipe! Only five ingredients and you have a moist, fluffy and delicious lemon drizzle loaf worth bragging about. Mark my words, everyone will be clamoring for a second slice 😉
Lemon Drizzle cake is hugely popular and for a good reason! A cake that uses just a handful of ingredients – only five! – yet tastes incredibly delicious… what more can you ask for?
I have several recipes for lemon drizzle cake on this site, including a classic Round Lemon Drizzle Cake, Slimming Lemon Cake, Lemon Drizzle Traybake Cake and more. So it’s high time I share my recipe for Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle Cake!
It is hands down one of the best things you can make in your air fryer, turning out incredibly moist, fluffy soft and delicious. I have adapted my fave lemon drizzle loaf recipe for the air fryer. The ingredients and method are the same but this recipe is designed with air fryer baking in mind.
Baking in the air fryer requires a bit of getting used to, especially since models can vary in their wattage and efficiency. The good news is that you can quickly pull the air fryer basket to check on your lemon drizzle – unlike baking in an oven when opening the door too often can result in the temperature dropping too much.
Here’s what you will need
You just need five ingredients to make this cake, a mixing bowl and an electric hand mixer (or stand mixer). Let’s take a look.
- LEMONS: we will be using both the lemon zest and the lemon juice in this recipe so get some unwaxed lemons.
- SUGAR: both caster and granulated sugar are used in this cake.
- SELF-RISING FLOUR: make sure it is fresh otherwise the cake won’t rise properly. If you don’t have self raising you can use plain flour with additional baking powder.
- BUTTER: softened unsalted butter or a baking spread such as Stork (margarine). I prefer Stork as it can be used straight out of the fridge.
- EGGS: large eggs at room temperature.
How to Make Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle Cake
- Use a microplane zester to zest the lemons into your mixing bowl. Add the sugar and rub the zest into the sugar with your fingertips to release the lemon oil. This adds so much zesty fragrance and flavor to this lemon drizzle cake!
- Add all remaining ingredients and beat together with an electric hand mixer until the batter is completely smooth, about a minute.
- Spoon the cake batter into a 450g (1 pound) loaf pan and level. Transfer to the air fryer and bake for 40-45 minutes at 160°C (325°F) or until the cake is golden, risen and a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. If the tester comes out with wet batter, continue to cook for a further 2-4 minutes and check again.
- Remove the basket from the air fryer but leave the cake in the basket for five minutes. Poke holes with a skewer over the cake. Combine the sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and drizzle over the top. Take your time doing this so the drizzle has a chance to soak into the warm cake.
- Carefully lift the cake on a wire rack to cool down – the drizzle will set into a crunchy sugar crust. Slice and share or keep up to five days in a covered cake container at room temperature.
Recipe Notes and Tips
- How to make Self-Rising flour Self-rising or self-raising flour (self-rising) is commonly used in the UK. If you need to make your own then sift together 200g (1 1/4 cups) plain / all-purpose flour with two teaspoons baking powder and a pinch of salt. This amount is just right for this recipe.
- Troubleshooting Lemon Drizzle In an Air Fryer The heat in the air fryer comes from the top. If you bake the cake on a high heat setting it will rise quickly and brown on top but will remain unbaked on the bottom. Using a lower heat setting allows the cake to rise slowly and evenly.
- Don’t have a small loaf pan? You can use this recipe to make cupcakes instead. Follow the timing of my Air Fryer cupcakes recipe.
I hope you enjoyed making my Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle recipe! Connect with me on my Facebook page, share your creation on Instagram, or save it to Pinterest with the tag #supergoldenbakes and make my day!
Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle Cake
Video
Ingredients
For the cake
- 2 lemons zest only
- 1 cup (200g) sugar ideally caster / superfine sugar
- 1⅔ cups (200g) self-rising flour (self-raising) or see notes
- ¾ cup + 2 tbsp (200g) softened unsalted butter or margarine
- 2 large eggs room temperture
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
For the drizzle
- ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar , plus extra if needed
- 2 lemons juice only
Instructions
- Preheat the air fryer to 160°C (325°F). Mist a small loaf pan with cake release and line with parchment paper or a baking liner
- Zest the lemons into your mixing bowl. Add the sugar and rub the zest into it to release the lemon oil.2 lemons, 1 cup (200g) sugar
- Add all remaining ingredients and beat together with an electric hand mixer until the batter is completely smooth, about a minute.1⅔ cups (200g) self-rising flour , ¾ cup + 2 tbsp (200g) softened unsalted butter, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 2 large eggs
- Spoon the cake batter into the prepared pan and level. Transfer to the air fryer and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the cake is golden, risen and a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. If the tester comes out with wet batter, continue to cook for a further 2-4 minutes and check again.
- Remove the basket from the air fryer and the cake in the basket for five minutes. Poke holes with a skewer over the cake.
- Combine the sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and drizzle over the top. Take your time doing this so the drizzle has a chance to soak into the warm cake.2 lemons, ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
- Carefully lift the cake on a wire rack to cool down – the drizzle will set into a crunch crystal glaze. Slice and share or keep up to five days in a covered cake container at room temperature.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is always approximate, and will depend on quality of ingredients and serving sizes.
This was a disaster. The batter was fine, but the quantity was far too much for a 1lb loaf tin. I should have used my common sense and put it into two loaf tins. That worked second time round.
I have made this recipe (as have many other readers) without any issues. I am sorry you ran into this problem
have made this lemon drizzle cake several times with great success. Could I adapt the recipe to make coffee and walnut cake by substituting the lemon juice for 2tbs instant coffee and adding crushed walnuts?
Hi Elisabeth – that sounds delicious and I dont see why not!
Helllo, thanks for your recipe, I followed the instructions, but used a silicon loaf pan to put it in, with a baking paper liner. After 40 mins the cake was not cooked, so put in for another 5 mins, still not cooked, but the top was cooked, noticed the side was still raw. So did another 5 minuets . seemed cooked with a coktail stick. but the whole botton of the cake was raw.
Hi Norma – not sure what air fryer you are using but they can all vary a lot. A metal tin holds on to heat a lot better than silicone (which I would not recommend). I would suggest you bake for longer at a low heat setting (say 150°C/300°F) and using a small rack to elevate the cake pan so that air circulates better. Sorry it did not work out let me know if I can help further
This was my first try at baking a cake in my new air fryer and it was brilliant. I needed to extend the cooking time by 7 minutes and the cake was rather crumbly (could this be because I used granulated sugar instead of caster?). I also had to use an 8 inch round cake tin as my loaf tin wouldn’t fit into the air fryer but I am so happy at how delicious the cake tasted. Thank you
I had a complete failure with this recipe and wonder what I did wrong. It was golden and had risen but collapsed when left to cool. The skewer came out clean. I then pricked it all over and poured on the drizzle which seemed to just go through to the bottom. Perhaps it just wasn’t baked enough. I used an Instant air fryer on bake setting.
Sounds like it wasn’t baked through. If you are unsure as to whether the cake is baked then feel the top – does it spring back if prodded with a finger? I use the settings in the recipe and have had no issues, but I don’t use the bake setting just set it manually.