I am one of the most unobservant people when it comes to my surroundings.
I’m probably too observant when it comes to what people are thinking and feeling around me (I’m like a sponge for that stuff!) but when it comes to the actual landscape around me it’s like I walk around with blinkers on.
For example I needed to get some fresh raw nuts for a raw dessert and Jaye told me I could get them at this supermarket that I go to ALL the time. And I told him that no, there was no fresh nuts section, I could only get pre-packaged nuts there.
And he laughed at me because he said of course there was a fresh nuts section! And he tried to explain to me where it was, but here’s another thing I’m not good at – direction! I simply have no sense of direction. So I had no idea what he was talking about.
So we went there together and he pointed out the massive section of the shop with the fresh nuts and dried fruits counter. I had literally NEVER seen it until that moment.
Well, the other day something similar happened. While browsing another supermarket I go to very regularly I suddenly happened upon a section I had never seen before. A baking section! I was gobsmacked that I had never seen this section of the store until that moment!
They have every manner of awesome baking tool I could imagine, and many I had not even imagined existed!
Oh my – I was in awe of all this cool stuff! Things like specially curved spatulas for frosting cakes!
Do you know I’ve been frosting my cakes with a butter knife? Well maybe you did know that, they’re not exactly perfectly frosted specimens!
Sadly, I had already made and photographed this delicious vegan key lime cake by the time of this discovery, so it doesn’t have any impact on today’s recipe, but on future recipes, I think an impact will be made!
And what’s this I hear about a cake turntable to assist you in frosting? Well, well, there’s a whole world of cool baking gadgets out there! If you have any that you can’t do without – help a girl out! Let me know so I can get them! 
This key lime cake was heaps of fun to make. I made it for my sisters birthday. And everyone loved it.
The thing with being a food blogger is if someone is having a birthday you don’t just go making something you’ve made before, it has to be a new thing!
So when my sisters birthday was coming around I went looking for new cake ideas and landed on the idea of a key lime cake.
It doesn’t actually need to be green. The flavor comes about from the actual lime juice in the cake, not the green coloring added to it.
But I thought it would be really fun to make everything bright neon green! And it was!
But if you don’t like using food coloring, you can just omit the color completely. All the flavor will still be there. There is so little food color used that omitting it won’t affect how the recipe turns out.
I basically just adapted my vegan vanilla cake recipe to make this. I switched out some of the plant based milk for lime juice.
Now here’s the thing. I could not actually get key limes here in Dubai. But I was quite convinced by researching it online that using regular limes in their place would end up the exact same way. Usually the risk of using limes instead of key limes is that limes are sweeter.
Well maybe some limes are sweeter but the limes I got were likely the most tart limes in the history of limes.
But apparently (I have not tried this) if your limes are quite sweet you can go for half lime juice, half lemon juice. That way you’re more closely approximating key limes.
Of course if you CAN get key limes then just use those!
As with all my cakes I used my super cute 7 inch cake tins! So this is a small cake.
If your cake tins are larger you could try making this into a single layer cake, but I have not tried it this way. I’m wary these days of increasing recipes to double them as for some reason (no idea why!) this often does not work out.
If your cake tins are smaller (6 inch) then go for it, you may just have to bake a couple of minutes longer.
The frosting is deliciously lime flavored as well and the cake is topped with lime zest.
The result is a richly flavored fabulously colorful lime cake!
I hope you’ll love this key lime cake as much as we did! It’s:
- Fabulously green
- Richly flavored
- Light and fluffy
- Deliciously shareable
It makes an ideal birthday cake or special occasion cake.
It’s best when fresh but will last up to a week if you keep it covered in the fridge.
Any comments or questions? Fire away in the comment section below!
If you make this recipe – pop back and let us know how it turned out!
Any pics – tag them #lovingitvegan on instagram so we get to see them too!
And don’t forget – if you have any indispensable baking tools you can’t do without, let me know what they are!
Thanks a ton!
Vegan Key Lime Cake
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Prep Time: 15 mins - Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
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Yield: 10 -
Category: Dessert -
Cuisine: Vegan
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
This richly flavored vegan key lime cake is ideal for a birthday or any special occasion. Light and fluffy key lime cake smothered in velvety key lime frosting.
Ingredients
- For the Key Lime Cake:
- 1 and 3/4 cups (220g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 cup (200g) Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/3 cup (80ml) Key Lime Juice* (see notes)
- 2/3 cup (160ml) Soy Milk (or other non-dairy milk)
- 1/3 cup (80ml) Vegetable Oil (I used olive oil)
- 1 Tbsp White Vinegar (or Apple Cider Vinegar)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp Green Food Coloring (optional)
- For the Key Lime Frosting:
- 3 and a 3/4 cups (450g) Powdered (Confectioners) Sugar
- 1/2 cup (112g) Vegan Butter or Margarine
- 3 Tbsp Key Lime Juice* (see notes)
- 1/2 tsp Green Food Coloring (optional)
- For Decoration:
- Zest from 1 lime
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt and mix together.
- Then squeeze the lime juice and add it to the mixing bowl along with the soy milk, vegetable oil, vinegar, vanilla extract and green food coloring (if using).
- Whisk it with a hand whisk until it’s well mixed and all the lumps are removed.
- Grease two 7 inch round cake tins with coconut oil and cut out two circles of parchment paper for the bottoms of the tins.
- Pour out the batter evenly between the two tins and place into the oven to bake for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, check if they are ready by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cakes. If the toothpick comes out clean, then your cake is ready.
- Transfer the cakes from the cake tins to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.
- Prepare your frosting by adding all the frosting ingredients to an electric mixer and beginning on slow speed, gradually increase speed until your frosting is smooth and creamy.
- If your frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar, if it’s too thick, add a little more lime juice. The consistency should be thick, but still spreadable.
- When your cakes are cooled, frost one layer and then add the other layer on top and frost the top and sides.
- Decorate with lime zest.
Notes
*If you can’t get key limes, you can use regular limes (which is what I used in this recipe).
*Nutritional Information is for 1 slice of 10 with a generous amount of frosting.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Slice (of 10)
- Calories: 454
- Sugar: 64.7g
- Sodium: 374mg
- Fat: 12.9g
- Saturated Fat: 2g
- Carbohydrates: 83.5g
- Fiber: 0.7g
- Protein: 2.8g
Looks wonderful, tastes even better. Love the lime flavour and my kids loved the colour!
★★★★★
Awesome! 🙂 x
My family said it was the best cake they ever had.
★★★★★
Wow! That’s so awesome! So happy to hear!
A green cake? I would never have thought of that – absolutely delicious!
★★★★★
Haha, yes I loved the green! 🙂
This cake looks wonderful and I’m sure it tastes just as much! I’ll give it a try as soon as the next perfect occasion pops up – might even just create it *oops*
★★★★★
Hahaha, that sounds like a great plan Alexis! 🙂 x
Is there a gluten free option? This sounds so yummy but I can’t do the regular flour.
Sure you can adapt it to be gluten-free. If I was adapting this recipe, I would switch the flour for a gluten-free all purpose flour blend (I like Bob’s Red Mill brand and usually use that), and then because gluten-free flours absorb more moisture, I would increase the oil to half a cup and add 2 tablespoons of applesauce. I would also increase the baking soda and baking powder by 25% each, so add a 1/4 tsp to each. All the best!
I’m going to be making dessert for a wine dinner I’m working next week and this looks perfect!! (We have three vegans in the group)
Since it’s a group of 29, I need to make a larger cake! I saw you mentioned using one 8″ pan or increasing the recipe by 50%..
So my question is that by increasing it by 50% I can fill two 8″ cake pans?
Wasn’t exactly clear.
Thank you!!
Yes, by increasing the recipe 50% you’ll fill two 8″ pans. You might need to cook it a few minutes longer too, I’m not entirely sure, check it at 30 minutes and see if it’s done, it might need a couple of minutes more as the layers will likely be slightly thicker as well.
I did this recipe for my husband’s birthday. We both loved it. So original!
Fantastic! So happy to hear!
If I cooked this in a bundt cake pan would it still come out okay?
The kind of pan you use will only make a difference to the baking time, I’m not sure how much longer or shorter the baking time might be.
Thank you for all of your great posts! One kitchen tool I can not live without is the stainless steel hand immersion blender! I use it for the tomato sauce – and I blend it right in the hot pot – because it’s stainless steel and not plastic. I also use it for other recipes, but this is a great kitchen tool that I am really enjoying and thankful for. Have a beautiful day and please keep baking and sharing your awesome recipes. And, I love reading your blog / blurb right before the recipe. I wish you all of the best in your life. You share so much of your talent with us and I thank you. 🙂
Hi Jessica! Thanks for sharing! Yes I must say I love my immersion blender too – makes soups so much easier!
I tried this tonight and it didn’t really turn out. Admittedly this was my first attempt at vegan baking and using soy milk and vegan butter. I bake all the time, but a colleague asked for a vegan cake for her birthday. I doubled the recipe and used 8 in pans. Cooked for 30 mins and the toothpick came out completely clean. It seemed a little gummy and the very center sunk a little on each cake. One of your posts talked about weighing flour but I forgot to do that; I just used measuring cups. Do you think that’s the main problem or do you think it was an issue with doubling the recipe and making it altogether? Also, the frosting seemed fine, but then it literally slid off the cake after I frosted it. I also doubled that recipe too. I’m determined to make this work, but I can’t serve it as is right now. So any suggestions you have would be appreciated. Thanks
Hi Cindy, it sounds like the cake was too wet, and likely undercooked as well. The toothpick method isn’t full-proof, and it goes along with the correct cooking time, by doubling the recipe for 8 inch pans (which are only a little bigger than those I used) it would definitely have needed to cook longer, maybe even a full 10 minutes longer or more. When you put in the toothpick, it should come out clean but the cake should also look right and feel right, so no sinking in the middle, and it should have a light and spongey feel when the toothpick goes in. This could well account entirely for the gummy feel of the cake, but it could also have been that the cake was too wet to start with. As someone who does bake a lot, you already know that it can be tricky to double recipes, and maybe it takes a couple of tries to get it right. The frosting was definitely too runny. Much too runny. It needs to be as thick as you can make it, while still being able to spread it. Vegan baking isn’t so different to other baking, it’s different ingredients, but you definitely want the same result, nice thick frosting, perfectly moist and spongey cake. Not weighing the flour might have resulted in a cake too dense, because the common issue is using too much, though it doesn’t seem like that was the case here. It might be worth making the recipe as stated (not doubled) to start with, and then getting the feel for it and then increasing it after that. All the best and hope it works on the second round!
The weight for the flour is incorrect. It should be 350g, not 220g. The same thing happened to me (and, being an avid baker, I should have noticed immediately, as opposed to when I saw that my cupcakes had sinkholes). They still taste great, though.
My bad, that seems like the right conversion, but I feel like something is off.
Hi Nicole, the flour weight is correct, one cup measures 125g so 1 and 3/4 cup is actually exactly 218.75g but I just round that to 220g! 🙂
Thank you Alison. I tried it again last night…this time making each layer separately and cooking longer (I baked one for 47 min and the other for 55 min). I’d love to send you pics of each layer to see which resembles how you think the cake should look. I did swap out a different frosting recipe as I really didn’t want to use the vegan butter again. 😊 Everyone loved the cake so thank you for you suggestions.
Made this recipe into cupcakes without frosting. Everyone liked the key lime flavor. The cupcake itself has a strong taste, that I think frosting isn’t needed for people trying to cut down on sugar. Or you can try whipping cream with lime zest, which will be less calorie rich.
★★★★★
Great to hear they were enjoyed without frosting, and yes whipped coconut cream with lime zest would also make a very good frosting! Thanks for posting! 🙂
I am cooking mine in oven as I speak single layer cake and blonde colour as I don’t have green colouring, I added a little bit of dessicated coconut into mixture will add that onto icing so coconut & lime cake
Sounds great! How did it turn out?
I made this for a local Coffee and Cake event as a bundt ring and it turned out fantastic, we had people turn up just so they could have a piece of Vegan cake. Link to a photo of said cake https://www.instagram.com/p/BiOk0uLAjSi/?taken-by=druidsgarden
I’m currently in the process of making it again but this time as cupcakes for a party we are having this evening. The whole house smells of limes at the moment. It’s definitely going to be one of my go-to recipes from now on.
So awesome! Love the photo! So happy to hear it was a success. Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂
Can the vanilla extract be omitted?
You can omit it, it’s only 1 tsp so won’t make a big difference to anything.
I’m not vegan, but my friends are. I made this cake for a summer party, it was a great hit, I’ve never seen cake fly off the plate quicker! I’ve never made a vegan cake before and I was a little distrusting of the recipe – i was so wrong, it tasted so good, better than my non-vegan cakes. But what I really love about this recipe and blog is that being really dyslexic makes it very hard to usually follow recipes, but it was so clear and logical- thanks for the easiest and least frustrating recipe to follow!
★★★★★
Thanks so much Naomi, it is so great to hear that you found the recipe easy to follow, it’s definitely what I aim for! And I’m thrilled everyone loved the cake! Thanks so much for your awesome comment and rating! 🙂
Hi, lime is a little expensive in my country. So can I use lemon instead of lime? Would it still be as good as lime?
We do have a lemon cake you might want to try in that case. 🙂 I’m not sure about switching this recipe to use lemon, it might be fine but I haven’t tested it like that. 🙂
Question: I am a bit of a fanatic when it comes to whole grains vs. processed, and I always try to substitute whole wheat flour for just a portion of the white in almost all my baking. Can I use, say, 1/3 whole wheat here? I use the white whole wheat, milder in flavor than regular. Or, can I even do it with whole wheat pastry flour?
Hi there, it might be fine, but I’m not sure. I haven’t tested this recipe that way so it would be an experiment! 🙂
Made these into cupcakes last night. Came out great! Really perfect texture: fluffy and light. Really appreciate how quick and one-bowl this recipe is! Thanks!
★★★★★
Awesome Mary! Thanks for sharing! 😁
hi, I have been looking for this recipe, I will be trying this in the next hour
Hi!! I’m writing you guys from a small town in Mexico. My husband’s birthday is coming and there’s nowhere I can find refined coconut oil. Is there any substitute for Vegan butter I can use for this recipe?
Hi Libby, in other recipes commenters have noted that they used coconut oil (regular kind) as a replacement for vegan butter so you could try it like that. All the best! 🙂