You only need 2 ingredients to make this easy lemon glaze! It's the perfect zesty topping for baked goods like cakes, cookies, and scones.
This lemon glaze recipe is my favorite way to make everyday baked goods feel a little bit more special. With just 2 ingredients, it’s amazingly easy to make (just add them to a bowl and stir!), and the minimal effort is always worth it. It looks so pretty on top of a loaf cake, cookies, or scones, and it gives them an extra pop of sweet, zesty flavor.
I’m sharing some of my favorite recipes to pair with it in the post below. But really, anytime you want to elevate a simple treat, this lemon glaze will do the trick.
Lemon Glaze Recipe Ingredients
To make this lemon glaze recipe, you’ll need two basic ingredients:
- Powdered sugar – Aka confectioner’s sugar or icing sugar. It sweetens the glaze and helps it firm up on top of baked goods. Use store-bought, or make your own!
- Fresh lemon juice – It makes the glaze smooth and runny and adds bright lemon flavor. Use more or less depending on how thick you want your glaze to be.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Lemon Glaze
This recipe is super quick and easy to stir together!
Place the powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice in a medium bowl.
Whisk to combine, making sure to incorporate all the dry powdered sugar.
When the glaze is smooth, adjust the consistency to your liking. If it seems too thick, add more lemon juice, 1 teaspoon at time, until the glaze is pourable. That’s it!
How to Use Lemon Glaze
To use the glaze, pour or drizzle it over any baked good that has cooled to room temperature. (Don’t add it while the baked goods are still warm. If you do, the glaze will melt!)
I especially like it on fruity or lemony treats, such as…
- Loaf cakes, like a simple pound cake or this lemon yogurt cake.
- Scones, like these blueberry scones or these vegan raspberry scones.
- Cookies, like my sugar cookies, vegan sugar cookies, or lemon shortbread cookies.
- And muffins, like my vegan lemon muffins, blueberry muffins, or strawberry muffins.
How do you like to use this easy glaze? Let me know in the comments!
More Easy Baking Basics
If you love this recipe, try making one of these baking basics next:
Lemon Glaze
Ingredients
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine the powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice. Whisk to combine, adding more lemon juice as needed to create a smooth, pourable glaze.
- Drizzle over cakes and cookies that have cooled completely after baking. See the blog post above for more ideas to use lemon glaze.
Does the cake I used it on need to in fridg
Hi Susan, if you used it on our lemon cake, it can be stored at room temp.
East, very tasty and exactly what I needed to brighten up my blueberry lemon Dutch baby.
Hi Linda, so glad you loved it! That Dutch baby sounds delicious. 🙂
Putting this on my Christmas cranberry cake!
Of course it’s good. You should try making it before you leave a one star review. It’s extremely rude.
Thank you so much! I made cheesecake bite cookies that weren’t very sweet and the texture is more like a moist biscuit. This fixed them right on up!
Such an easy recipe! I used this glaze over gingerbread. The warmth of the spicy cake combined with the cool lemon glaze was delish!
Who could believe it could be this simple?!
I think even I can probably do this one!!
My wife loves sliced lemon pound cake – you’ve just made it simpler for me to make her some!
I’m so glad you both loved it!
Easy recipe and good.
consistency is 10/10, gonna put this on my sweetbread
I’m so glad you loved it!
Lemon glaze is wonderful on bread pudding. ?
I’m so glad you loved it!
Wonderful glaze. Went very well with my lemon blueberry Muffins. ?
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Do you have a weekly newsletter that I can subscribe to?
Rhonda
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Has anyone ever used lemon extract instead? ( no lemons, so thats what i got) and how did that alter the taste or texture? Thankd
Hi, we haven’t tried this, so I’m not 100% sure how it would work, but I think lemon extract would be great here! Instead of doing a 1:1 substitution with the lemon juice, I’d replace the lemon juice with water or unsweetened almond milk. Then, add lemon extract to taste. I think 1/2 teaspoon would be a good place to start.
I used this glaze on a lemon jelly roll . Delicious.
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Wonderful addition to my blueberry scones ?
So glad you loved it!
Very easy to make, with delicious lemony flavor. I glazed a clementine cake with this and the flavors complemented each other delightfully.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
This was a nice addition to a lemon cake that I baked for the family. I appreciate the simplicity and the taste was good. Thanks!
I’m so glad you loved it!
This is a great and tasty recipe. I found a few others online that were needlessly complicated. Glad I found this one – no fuss, yet tasty.
Hi Sally, I’m so glad you loved it!
Perfectly easy and So Delicious!
Thank you!!
Taste a bit to much like pure powder sugar for my taste
Just add more lemon juice!
This was delicious! Will be making it again!!