Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle Cake

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

1. 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!

1. Add all remaining ingredients and beat together with an electric hand mixer until the batter is completely smooth, about a minute.
2. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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 #Nusde and make my day!