Mostly sweet but a little tart, these Lemon Brownies are bursting with real lemon flavor!
They’re certainly different from my traditional brownie recipe that you might be used to, but they’re every bit as chewy, rich, and moist as the classic chocolate version! I love topping mine off with a simple lemon glaze!
Lemon Brownies
Confession: Summertime is my least favorite time of the year for baking. Like, by far. When it’s nearly 90 degrees outside and humidity is through the roof, the last thing I want to do is turn on the oven.
Unless I’m making something refreshing and bright and maybe a little tart. Today’s lemon brownie recipe is exactly that, and maybe you’ve noticed there have been a few lemony recipes around here recently (like my lemonade and lemon curd), for exactly that reason. You can expect a few more coming down the pipe as well, stay tuned for my lemon cupcakes!
While these lemon brownies do require you to turn on the oven, other than that the process is very simple and very summertime friendly. No electric mixer required (we’re melting our butter so everything can be mixed up by hand), no waiting for dough to chill, no scooping, none of that. Just mix everything together, pour it into a pan, and done.
And, when you’re finished, your house is going to smell like fresh lemons 🍋💜
Ingredients for Lemon Brownies
We’re keeping things simple today with just a handful of pantry staples:
- Butter! You’ll need two sticks (or 1 cup, or 226 grams) of unsalted butter. You’ll want to melt this and let it cool a bit before mixing everything together.
- Sugar, just granulated (no brown sugar today) to let the lemon flavor fully shine through. I found that when I added brown sugar it really bullied the lemon flavor into submission.
- Eggs, one whole egg then one yolk only
- Lemon juice and lemon extract. More below on why I opted to use lemon extract instead of just natural lemon flavors.
- Vanilla extract, just a bit for depth of flavor.
- Flour
- Cornstarch (to make these lemon brownies soft and chewy!)
- Baking soda
- Salt
Tips
- As with my chocolate chip cookies, we’re making today’s recipe with melted butter. The good news: No electric mixer required. The not-so-good: you need a little patience, the butter will need to cool for 10-15 minutes before you add your sugar so the sugar doesn’t melt.
- Always zest your lemons before juicing them! Much easier this way rather than trying to zest the skin from a hollow rind (and you’re much less likely to grate your knuckles that way… ask me how I know…)
- This recipe uses fresh lemon zest and juice as well as lemon extract. I tried (multiple times) to make these lemon brownies without extract, but found the flavor just wasn’t as bold as I wanted it to be. You can leave the extract out, but the lemon taste of the “brownies” will be a bit more subtle (you will get a lot of tart lemon flavor from the glaze, though!).
All things considered, today’s recipe is actually a very simple one, but these tips should help you along the way!
Enjoy!
More Recipes You Might Like:
- Lemon Cream Pie
- The Best Blondie Recipe
- Cosmic Brownies
- White Chocolate Brownies
- Key Lime Pie Cookies
- Check out more Bars & Brownie Recipes
Be sure to check out my Lemon Brownie video at the bottom of the recipe! If you enjoy watching, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel where I’ve already uploaded over 150 recipe videos that you can watch for free!
Lemon Brownies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter melted and cooled to room temperature (226g)
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar (300g)
- 2 Tablespoons lemon zest avoid the pith
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1 large egg yolk room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon lemon extract
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour (310g)
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
LEMON GLAZE
- ¾ cup powdered sugar (95g)
- 1-2 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and grease and flour a 9x9 baking pan or line with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine melted butter, sugar, and lemon zest. Stir well.
- Add egg and egg yolk, lemon juice, lemon extract, and vanilla extract. Stir again until well-combined.
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt.
- Stir dry ingredients into wet until completely combined. Pour into prepared 9x9 pan and transfer to 350F (175C) oven. Bake 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Allow to cool completely before covering with glaze.
LEMON GLAZE
- Once lemon brownies have cooled, prepare glaze by whisking together powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and lemon zest until well-combined. If mixture is too stiff, add remaining lemon juice, 1 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached (when you lift a spoon or whisk out of the mixture, the glaze that drizzles off the spoon and falls back into the bowl should hold its ribbon shape for a few seconds before fading back into the rest of the glaze).
- Pour glaze over lemon brownies, use a spatula to smooth evenly over the surface.
- Allow glaze to harden (about 15-30 minutes) before slicing and serving lemon brownies.
Nutrition
Treat yourself to a FREE E-BOOK!
Diane
Can they be made in a 9×13?
Sam
Hi Diane! They will work in a 9 x 13 but unless you increase the recipe, the brownies will be a little thinner and would require less time in the oven. 🙂
Hafiza
Is the batter supposed to be a little solid and crumbly? Despite following the recipe exactly as it was written, my batter did not come out like your typical, traditional brownie batter—thick, heavy and slightly runny. Mine came out solid, crumbly, like cookie dough. I’ll post a review when I’m done baking it.
Sam
I’m so sorry this happened! You can see the consistency in the picture just above the tips section or in the video right above the recipe card. It should turn out like a normal brownie batter consistency. If it was too dry and crumbly you may have accidentally over-measured the flour. 🙂
Lynette
OMG Fabulous recipe. Boy Sam you certainly know how to make a recipe rock. I have never tasted a lemon goodie taste this spectacular. Delicious delicious beyond good
Sam
Thank you so much, Lynette! I am so glad you enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Yana
I made these a couple of weeks ago but only had an 8×8 pan so I used that instead. As expected, the brownies ended up thicker than in the picture (which was great) but unfortunately deflated at the center. Didn’t care, still ate them all (cause soooo goood with or without the glaze). Would love to know though how to avoid having that sunk middle for next time!
Sam
Hi Yana! I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much! It’s weird that they sunk, is it possible they may have just needed to bake a little bit longer?
Yana
That’s my guess cause I only added 5 minutes to the bake time before I asked my husband to check on the brownies and do the toothpick test (I would have done it myself but by this time my baby needed me). He said the toothpick came out clear so I trusted him and told him to take the pan out. It took almost an hour before I got to check on the brownies again and by then they have sunk. I’m guessing my mistake here was assuming my husband knew how clear I needed the toothpick to be. Anyway they’re really good so I know I’ll be making these again and I will add more baking time or maybe I’ll get a 9×9 pan!
Sam
I’m glad you still enjoyed them! My husband is pretty bad at the toothpick test too. 🤣
Kimberly
The texture of these are just.. *chefs kiss*! Ah-mazing! And you are just adorable in your video but I seriously must ask….
Why not “lemon blondies”??
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed, Kimberly! Lemon blondies would make more sense, wouldn’t it 😅
Kimberly
😆 I’m only teasing! Actually it was the “brownie” part of the title that made me click bc i knew what texture to anticipate 🙂 Also, it makes your recipe stand apart from all the other Lemon blondies!
Sam
💛
Esther
Hi, this recipe looks so good I want to try it out but all I have is vegan butter that has salt in it. Would it turn out okay, and should I cut out the salt that the recipe calls for?
Sam
Hi Esther! I’m not sure about the salt content of vegan salted butter so I’m not quite sure exactly how much salt you would need to cut. With standard salted butter you would just reduce the salt by about 1/2 teaspoon
Kristine Khoury
These Lemon Brownies are fantastic!!! They are chewy, lemony and delish!! The whole family loves them-especially my nephew who is the pickiest little guy!! Thank you!!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Kritine! 🙂
Carson chamness
These are so good. I don’t have the patience to zest that much lemon so I normally end up not getting enough zest and not as much lemon flavor as I want but that’s 100% my fault for me being lazy. It’s still delicious and a recipe that I will save and make over and over again and who knows maybe one time I’ll finally have the energy to get the perfect lemon flavor the recipe calls for instead of my lazy way.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoy it so much, Carson! Zesting lemons can be time consuming so I understand completely. 🤣
Katie Rose
These were so delicious! I had to add a lot more powdered sugar to the icing mixture to make it close to the consistency you described. But it was still fantastic. Do you think adding raspberries to the batter would interfere with the texture?
Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for trying my recipe, Katie! I am so glad that you enjoyed it. I haven’t tried adding raspberries to this batter, but you should be ok to do so. Keep me posted on how it turns out if you try it. 🙂
Wendy C
I went into this recipe not believing in such a thing as a lemon brownie, but so hoping it was true! Alas…it is true! And so so unbelievably a balance of tart & sweet all with a brownie texture. I made a second batch using orange flavor & zest and added mini chocolate chips and some cocoa powder to the glaze, so delish! Thank you for such a great recipe!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that this recipe was exactly what you had hoped for, Wendy, and that you loved the brownies! Thanks for trying my recipe and for commenting. 🙂
Rose
I am so happy find your pages!! I love baking from scratch! For lemon flavor and acidity you could add True Lemon, especially for any glazes. It adds that tartness that is mouthwatering.
Tiffany
Was a little nervous at first because when I was preparing the batter, it was dry – almost like a cookie dough consistency but even drier (crumbly?). I searched up some remedies and ended up adding a bit more lemon juice which helped fix it. I probably over measured the flour. Other than that, these lemon bars turned out really good! Whole family loved them.
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them, Tiffany! 😊
Sheep
I made these again and they are not good…
they’re great! 😉 🙂 Happy April Fool’s Day!
Sugar Spun Run
When I read the first line, I was like WHAT?!!!! You got me, Sheep! 😉
I am so glad that you decided to make a second batch and they turned out just as good as the first! 🙂
Sheep
Hello, do you have any more desserts that are free of brown sugar? I ran out of it yesterday after making your peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies. 🙂
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Sheep! I have a lot of cookie recipes… here are some to try: Butter Cookies, Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies, Meringue Cookies, and Snickerdoodles. I hope that gives you some options. 🙂
Sheep
Hello! I ended up making the Lemon Brownies and they are so delicious! 🙂
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad. 🙂
Sheep
I ended up making the Lemon Brownies and they turned out so delicious, tangy and sweet! I didn’t use the lemon extract and it still turned out very lemony! 🙂
Sugar Spun Run
That is awesome, Sheep! I am glad that you found a recipe that worked for the ingredients you had on hand. I am happy you enjoyed them. 🙂
Leslie
So delicious!! A fun twist on a lemon dessert. The texture is chewy and satisfying, and the lemon glaze adds the perfect tang. Amazing, will make again! 🙂
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that the lemon brownies were such a hit, Leslie! Thank you for trying my recipe. 🙂