This mini lemon loaf recipe is adapted from Scientifically Sweet for my home bakery in Maryland.
Even though I specialize in chunky cookies, I was starting to get a little tired of just making cookies! Rather than officially expanding my product line, I decided to offer gift with purchases instead.
That way, I can bake whatever I want 😛
And I’m sure some customers will ask for certain bakes to make a comeback. However, since they’re not part of my official lineup, I don’t have to bring them back.
(Of course, I probably will lol, but having the freedom not to is just in my Sag moon nature.)
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Why make a mini lemon loaf?
I originally wanted to offer thin and crispy s’mores cookies as my first gift with purchase — I know I said I was sick of making cookies, but I was sick of making chunky cookies, which take about 17 minutes to bake and is much too long for marshmallows to survive baking.
But, they were a complete disaster!!! The base recipe absolute sucked donkey balls.
So, I was thinking back on what I could make the night before the market. GG.
I already knew that my customers LOVE lemon as does my cousin who raved about this lemon loaf I made for Thanksgiving. So, I went back to my personal Cake Pan Converter Spreadsheet, which I created to take the pan size of any recipe into 25+ pan sizes, and decided to make mini lemon loaves.
Lemon people, as I lovingly call them, are incredibly loyal and reliable! I just knew that this would be a hit even more so than the s’mores cookies would have been.
Sometimes things going wrong leads to something going more right than if the wrong thing did go right lol.
I dove into this revelation in my YouTube Short, but I really expound on it in my latest Substack newsletter.
Unsurprisingly, the mini lemon loaves were a smash hit! I successfully made upsells and ran out of mini lemon loaves with 2 hours to spare 🙂
Changes made to the original lemon loaf recipe
The original recipe uses lemon zest rubbed in granulated sugar to extract the oils in the lemon peel. But, I personally prefer using a lemon emulsion, which is a water-based flavoring, for consistency and control because sometimes the lemons in my area absolutely suck lol.
Another thing I do to almost all my bakes is use both salted butter and add more salt. I don’t know how, but I figured out the most salt you could add to a baked good using salted butter to get that salty-sweet balance people always talk about.
If you go looking for the salt, you can taste it. But, I’ve never had a complaint that my bakes were too salty.
Generally with baking, you want to use full-fat dairy products, but I only have 2% milk, so I used 2% milk. I do have full-fat sour cream so I think that helps combat any moisture loss from not using full-fat milk.
I also had to forgo the glaze because it was 9pm and didn’t have any lemons on hand, but honestly, it really didn’t need it!
Next time, I plan on adding a crumb topping to my mini lemon loaves — YUM.
My favorite baking tools
Like any good baker, I use a food scale — in fact, I have two! I don’t use cup or teaspoon measurements anymore to be honest.
I bought the smaller food scale with 0.01g accuracy before I started my business and needed a second food scale with a larger weight limit and another a 0.01g mini scale attached, so I really actually have three food scales lol.
I recently bought this silicone mini loaf pan for my brookies (brownie cookies) and this was PERFECT for my mini lemon loaves. One of my best business purchases!
Personally, I use a KitchenAid for… almost everything! I actually was given one by my aunt who used to run a convenience store with a kitchen! So, she gave it to me when she retired. It’s a hair small for my liking, but hey — it was free lol.
Mini Lemon Loaf Recipe
This recipe makes 8 mini loaves.
Ingredients
- 171.84g Granulated Sugar
- 6.87g Lemon Emulsion
- 94.51g Eggs
- 48.11g Salted Butter, melted
- 51.55g Vegetable Oil
- 68.74g Sour Cream, room temperature
- 2.58g Salt
- 201.91g Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 4.12g Baking Powder
- 1.03g Baking Soda
- 68.74g Milk, room temperature
Method
- Follow the original mixing instructions from Scientifically Sweet.
- Pour 60g batter into each cavity of a silicone mini loaf pan.
- Bake at 350°F for 20–25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean with a few crumbs. (Mine took 22 minutes.)
Conclusion
Whether you’re making these mini lemon loaves using my new favorite silicone mini loaf pan or want to bake the original recipe as is, I hope you can have faith that things don’t turn out for a reason like I’m learning to do.
Coming up with the idea to upsell with gift with purchases came from the need to get rid of some marshmallows. But, now I have an amazing new strategy to boost sales for my business and have some variety in my baking routine.
Still have the marshmallows by the way lol.
I think lemon loaves were the perfect launch to this new aspect of my business. I hope this scaled down version is helpful to you!
THIS ROUND’S DROP
I release content in bundles — this round comes with:
📺 YouTube Short — Making Mini Lemon Loaves
📬 Substack Essay — When things go wrong but turn out better
