Key Lime Cake | Simple Loaf Cake Recipes

Moist and super aromatic this key lime cake is perfect with your evening cup of tea. I would also love to have it as an indulgent breakfast!

What I love about this Key Lime Cake is that

• it is soft and moist
• it is beautifully aromatic
• it is super simple to make from scratch

While I didn’t make any frosting for the cake, there is a generous drizzle of lime syrup on the cake ensuring that it is well doused in sweet and citrusy lime flavors. 

I made my first key lime cake without even knowing I was making one :-). You may call me ignorant, but in India, we only get one kind of limes and those are key limes! For me, a regular lime meant the slightly yellow-green lime which would eventually become yellow. It was only when I went outside of India, that I figured that they are a really key ingredient with a special taste, different from regular green limes which never become yellow.

Difference between key limes & regular green limes

Key limes are green when picked and they slowly become yellow when ripe. As compared to the regular green limes, the key limes have:

• stronger aroma
• higher acidity
• are smaller and seedier and
• have a thin rind

One of my favorite books to learn baking from is Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a domestic Goddess”. For me baking cakes, breads, pies, cookies, and brownie doesn’t come naturally. But in her book she has so many easy recipes for beginners like me. One of the simple loaf cake recipe that I’d been wanting to make was the Lemon syrup loaf cake but we don’t get the yellow lemons very easily in India.

So I decided to adapt it to make with the small Indian limes which are the same as what many people call key limes. Since key limes are stronger in flavor and also more acidic than lemons and regular limes, I adjusted the original lemon cake recipe a little bit. 

Key-Lime substitute

Like I said before, I made my first key lime cake without even knowing I was making that because that’s the only variety of lime we get in our city. I learned only later that they are also called key limes :-).

Feel free to use regular lime instead of key lime, if they are not so easily available in your region or are expensive. Regular limes have more juice, so I would suggest use juice of only one regular lime to substitute for the juice of 2 key limes.

I like making loaf cakes. They are simple and elegant. Just a long loaf, cut into slices and enjoy with a cup of tea. If you also like simple no-frill cakes, you might also enjoy my Orange syrup loaf cake, fruit cake, and tea spiced banana loaf!

Key lime pie is a popular recipe and so is lemon cake, but you definitely need to try a lime cake. You are going to fall in love with this beautifully aromatic and simple key lime drizzle cake! 

5 from 2 votes

Save Pin Recipe

Key Lime Cake | Simple Loaf Cake Recipes

This key lime cake with a generous lime drizzle is deliciously moist and aromatic and also very easy to make. This is one of my first cake recipes when I started to learn baking and I come back to it again and again 🙂

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr

Cooling Time20 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Continental

Keyword: cake, egg recipes, tea-time snacks

Servings: 12

Calories: 167kcal

Ingredients (1cup = 240ml; 1tbsp = 15ml; 1tsp = 5ml)

For the Cake

• ½ cup unsalted butter softened (100g)
• ½ cup granulated sugar (100g)
• 2 eggs
• Zest of 2 limes
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (125g)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 4 tbsp buttermilk

For the syrup

• Juice of 2 lime
• ½ cup powdered sugar (50g)

Instructions

• Grease and line a 9X5″ loaf pan with parchment paper.
• Preheat oven to 180°C [356ºF/ gas mark 4].
• Cream together butter and sugar together until fluffy. I use my hand held beater on medium speed. 
• Add the lime zest and the eggs, beating them in well.
• Add the flour, baking powder, salt and then mix in the buttermilk.
• Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes, until the cake has risen in the middle and is lightly golden in color.
• While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup. Put the lime juice and icing sugar in a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar dissolves.
• As soon as the cake is out of the oven, poke the top of the loaf all over with a skewer. Pour the syrup evenly all over the cake.
• Leave the cake to cool completely and let the syrup do it’s magic as it seeps in and is absorbed by the hot cake.

Notes

• Use regular limes instead of key limes if they are difficult to find or very expensive.
• When lining the loaf pan, make sure that the lining comes an inch or so up from the sides of the pan. It makes it easier to remove the cake from the pan.
• If you try to take the cake out of the pan before it has cooled down, the cake might crumble as it will be sodden with syrup.
• Nutritional Information is approximate information for 1 of 12 slices.

Tried this recipe?Share with @myweekendkitchen or tag #weekendkitchen!

Connect with me

Would love to start a conversation, share recipes, cooking experiences and food stories from India and around the world.

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter