Lemon Buttermilk Bread recipe made with simple ingredients and topped with a bright, fresh lemon glaze. Buttermilk adds a wonderful flavor and texture to this easy lemon quick bread recipe. Sweet quick bread for anyone who loves baking with lemon!
I could honestly eat a slice of this Lemon Buttermilk Bread every morning. I love the bright flavor and the sweet, tangy lemon glaze balances out the bread perfectly. Have it for breakfast, for lunch, give it as a gift- whatever you make it for, just be sure to SAVE this recipe!
My Buttermilk Lemon Bread sank in the middle? What did I do wrong?
This happens to me occasionally too and it’s often because I’ve over mixed the batter. Quick bread (referring to a bread recipe that doesn’t use yeast) does not like to be stirred too much, so try to just barely mix all the ingredients together. I never use a stand or handheld mixer to make quick bread. Another culprit could be overfilling the pan. The bread pan should be only half full each time. As always, make sure your leavening ingredients- baking soda and baking powder- aren’t too old. Baking soda should only be on your shelf for 6-9 months before purchasing new. I purchase it in bulk (I bake a lot!) and refrigerate or freeze it to help it last longer. Know too that sometimes, quick bread just sinks a bit in the middle. I’ve learned to love the artisan, home-baked bread look this yields. It’s fine!
How do I know when my lemon quick bread is done baking?
Cooking bread can be somewhat tricky! I used to use the toothpick trick- where you insert a toothpick into the middle of the bread and see if it pulls out clean. Only problem is, oftentimes I’d bake a loaf of bread and have it close to being fully cooked, but still not quite cooked and yet the toothpick will pull out clean. So I began using a different method. I take the temperature of the bread using a digital food thermometer. If it’s a bread recipe that uses milk, or in this case buttermilk, it needs to cook to 200 degrees F. I take the temperature using a digital meat thermometer– it works great and I get perfectly baked bread each time.
Best Bread Pan for quick bread recipes?
I bake a lot of bread and the pans I prefer are either ceramic, glass or cast iron. These pans will bake bread more evenly and release the bread more easily after baking. I don’t like using dark or nonstick pans because the bread cooks unevenly. It darkens on the outside before the bread is cooked on the inside, so the coloring is uneven. Read more about which bread pan is the best here!
How do I keep my quick bread from sticking to the pan?
You can spray with an oil non-stick spray or line the bread pan with parchment paper. What I prefer to do is to use a non-stick spray that’s specifically for baked goods. It has a combination of oil and flour and literally, each time I use it, my bread falls easily right out of the pan.
Lemon Buttermilk Bread
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 1 heaping TBSP lemon zest
- 2 TBSP lemon juice
Lemon Glaze
- 3 TBSP lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick baking spray. Set aside.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and pour in wet ingredients- buttermilk, egg, butter and lemon zest and juice.
- Stir until ingredients are mixed well.
- Transfer bread batter to prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes, or until bread is lightly browned and internal temp registers 190 degrees F. Remove from oven and let cool 15 minutes. Overturn bread from pan and cool fully.
- Whisk together glaze, adjusting amount of powdered sugar until desired consistently is reached. Spoon over top of bread. Let glaze set, then slice bread and serve.
recipe adapted from The Kitchn.
AVOID SUNKEN BREAD
The easiest and best way to avoid sunken bread is to use a cooking thermometer to check the inside of the loaf. Fully cooked bread will register 200°F on a thermometer. My all-time favorite thermometer is the Thermapen. It’s super fast and incredibly durable. Another great cooking thermometer is the ThermoPop which is a more basic version that works just as well!
More amazing quick bread recipes that we love:
- Sweet Coconut Quick Bread
- Best Zucchini Bread recipe
- Easy Lemon Quick Bread
- Yogurt Banana Bread recipe
- Dutch Apple Quick Bread
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Quick Bread
- Caramel Banana Nut Bread
- Best Ever Pumpkin Bread
- Cake Mix Banana Bread
- Lemon Buttermilk Quick Bread
- Caramel Apple Quick Bread
- Cinnamon Raisin Quick Bread
- Peppermint Chocolate Quick Bread
- Cranberry Orange Qu ick Bread
- Cinnamon Roll Quick Bread
Lemon Buttermilk Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 1 heaping TBSP lemon zest
- 2 TBSP lemon juice
Lemon Glaze
- 3 TBSP lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick baking spray. Set aside.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and pour in wet ingredients- buttermilk, egg, butter and lemon zest and juice.
- Stir until ingredients are mixed well.
- Transfer bread batter to prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes, or until bread is lightly browned and internal temp registers 190 degrees F. Remove from oven and let cool 15 minutes. Overturn bread from pan and cool fully.
- Whisk together glaze, adjusting amount of powdered sugar until desired consistently is reached. Spoon over top of bread. Let glaze set, then slice bread and serve.
Video
📫 Save this recipe! Send it to your email! 📩
I consent to receiving emails from this site.
Jill says
Very salty. I recommend cutting the salt in half. It was a little overbearing.
Ella says
Bread came out so good! The bread was moist, light and airy. I made sure to mix by hand so as to avoid over stirring. After I poured the glaze over the bread I realized it was a bit too lemony for my taste but that was no problem, just sprinkled some powdered sugar on top. It sweetened it up plus place made it look prettier. LOL. Thank you for the recipe. Will make again!
Kaylie says
Thank you, Ella!
Dar says
It doesn’t have any lemon taste 😕
Jessica says
Did you add the heaping tablespoon of lemon zest to the bread batter, along with the 2 TBSP lemon juice? And did you add the 3 TBSP lemon juice to the glaze? I’m super confused at how adding all that could yield no lemon taste.
Ely Robles says
Thanks for this recipe! I loved it!
Sierra says
AMAZING!! Everyone loves this bread, it is tangy and moist and delicious. Not too heavy, perfect any time of day. I added a couple more table spoons of butter to make it a little more moist 🙂 thanks for this recipe!
Alison says
Thanks so much Sierra!
Forbes PERKINS says
Hello I am quite sure that this is a good recipe but I have a sunken loaf. Darn.
I love buttermilk and after watching Ben Starr’s buttermilk 101 on youtube I did make my own and have used that in the recipe.
Could that be the culprit?
Maybe.
Or
Was the melted butter too warm when I w mixed it gradually into the wet ingredients?
Or
Was the egg that I took out of the fridge and warmed in warm water not the right temp?
or
is my oven thermometer as unreliable as my oven’s temperature?
The sunken loaf has reached its internal temperature 5 minutes before its time and the cake feels soft when pressed and toothpick is not dry.
I know there is a lot going on.
I have learned that baking takes persistence.
Worse yet when you have Beginners Luck and then everything goes South.
Onward and upward. I am buying a new oven thermometer and going to get this “Simple” “Easy” recipe right.
I imagine what I could have done to a layer cake with frosting.
Yikes!
Nicole says
We actually have an entire section on this blog post above giving reasons why your quick bread may have sunk. Two of the biggest culprits is from overmixing the batter or overfilling the pan. If the internal temperature was met but the toothpick still came back wet then it’s most like the latter. Next time, divide the batter into two bread loaf pans and see what happens, you may have better luck.