This vegan lemon cake is pure lemony perfection!
Jaye was saying it’s exactly like the lemon cake his grandmother used to make! Which is high praise considering his grandmother was quite the chef.
The recipe is based on our vegan vanilla cake, with lots of lemon flavor added in via lemon zest and lemon extract and of course, a delicious lemon buttercream frosting and lots of lemon zest as decoration.
It’s super easy, and will happily fulfil all your lemon cake dreams!
When looking around the web at lemon cakes though, I saw a lot of lemon loaf cakes. And I definitely want to make one of those too! But that isn’t what comes to my mind when I think of a lemon cake, to me a lemon cake is a lemon layer cake, and a lemon loaf cake or a lemon pound cake is the loaf cake. Anyway, just saying because I hope you didn’t come to this page hoping for a loaf cake! If you did, well, I’ll do one of those soon too don’t worry, I want to do ALL the cakes! (Update: Vegan lemon pound cake is here!)
I went with two 8 inch cake pans for this cake. Usually my preference has been for 7 inch cake pans, but I have broken out! I got some 8 inch cake pans and I am going to be making a bunch of cakes for 8 inch cake pans now!
And to spread the love, I plan on getting some 9 inch pans too and making some cakes for those too! But that’s still coming, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s focus on these gorgeous 8 inch cake pans right here.
And don’t these layers look fat and gorgeous? They rise just beautifully!
I didn’t use a flax egg in this cake, which I also don’t use in my vanilla cake recipe that I based this recipe on. I don’t find I need it in this recipe and I don’t want it to affect the color. In light colored cakes, a flax egg can affect the color leading it to look a bit spotty, so in this case it’s best to leave it out.
So there isn’t any specific egg replacer in this recipe, unless you count the baking soda/vinegar combination, which definitely acts together to create some crucial baking science that I won’t claim to understand but as you can see, it all just works!
That’s all I’ve ever done with my cakes, try things and see if they work, and they definitely do! At least the ones published here do, the failures don’t make it to the blog (of course).
So I really think you are going to love this vegan lemon cake! It is:
- 2-Layers
- So Lemony!
- Moist
- Spongey
- Topped with velvety lemon buttercream!
Keep it covered at room temperature where it will stay gorgeous for a few days or keep it covered in the fridge where it will last for up to a week.
So what do you think of this gorgeous vegan lemon cake? Let us know in the comments and please be so kind as to rate the recipe too! Thank you!
For more gorgeous vegan cakes, check out these great recipes:
And heaps more!
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Vegan Lemon Cake
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Prep Time: 20 mins - Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 50 minutes
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Yield: 10-12 -
Category: Dessert, Cakes, Baking -
Cuisine: Vegan
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Ultra-lemony 2-layer vegan lemon cake with a velvety lemon buttercream frosting! This delicious vegan cake is perfectly moist and spongey and will make all your lemon cake dreams come true!
Ingredients
For the Vegan Lemon Cake:
- 2 and 1/2 cups (312g) + 2 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
- 1 and 1/2 cups (300g) White Sugar
- 1 and 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) Soy Milk (or other non-dairy milk)
- 1/2 cup (120ml) Olive Oil*
- 1 Tbsp White Vinegar (or Apple Cider Vinegar)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 3 tsp Lemon Extract
- 2 Tbsp Lemon Zest*
For the Lemon Buttercream Frosting:
- 4 and 1/2 cups (540g) Powdered Sugar
- 1/2 cup (112g) Vegan Butter
- 3 and 1/2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- 2 tsp Lemon Extract
For Decoration:
- Lemon Zest
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Spray two 8 inch cake pans with non-stick spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar, baking soda and salt. Then add the soy milk, olive oil, vinegar, vanilla, lemon extract and lemon zest. Whisk with a hand whisk briefly until nicely combined and no big lumps remain. Don’t overmix, tiny lumps are okay.
- Divide the batter between the two cake pans and place into the oven to bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
- Remove the cakes from the pans and place onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Prepare your frosting by placing the powdered sugar, vegan butter, lemon juice and lemon extract into the bowl of an electric mixer. Start off at slow speed, gradually increasing speed until thick and smooth. If your frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar, if it’s too thick, add a drop more lemon juice until you get the right consistency.
- Frost the cooled cakes and decorate with lemon zest.
Notes
*You can switch the olive oil for canola oil or other vegetable oil if you prefer, but I used extra virgin olive oil.
*2 Tbsp of lemon zest is from about 2 lemons, but it does depend on the size of the lemons, if it’s a large lemon you might get 2 Tbsp worth of zest from 1 lemon.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Slice (of 12)
- Calories: 512
- Sugar: 69.5g
- Sodium: 400mg
- Fat: 14.2g
- Saturated Fat: 2.2g
- Carbohydrates: 92.8g
- Fiber: 0.8g
- Protein: 3.8g
I made this for my dad’s birthday and it was better than any cake you’d buy at the shop!
Perfect recipe!
★★★★★
Wonderful Jo! Thanks for the great review! 🙂
Hello,
This recipe sounds wonderful, and I’m going to make it for my niece’s engagement gathering this weekend. I only have 9″ round pans (which I like because I’d like a slightly larger cake than the 8″) – how should I increase the quantities in the recipe to account for the larger pans? Thank you in advance – cannot wait to make this piece of lemony heaven!!
Hi Elizabeth, I’m not entirely sure how to increase this for 9 inch pans, it would be a small increase but I’m not sure of the exact ratio. However, the layers on this cake are quite fat, I think if you kept the recipe as is but did it in 9 inch pans it would be okay, just slightly thinner layers. All the best!
Ok, thanks – I’ll give it a go! 😉
Made this for a friend who loves anything lemon and it was delicious. Followed recipe to the T and didn’t change anything. I only discovered your website last week and the recipes are so uncomplicated. Thank you.
★★★★★
Thanks for the awesome review Karen! So glad you found the blog! Hope you’ll find loads of recipes you love here! 🙂
Holy Toledo!!
What a wonderful recipe! Just made this cake this past weekend – My family and I were commemorating my niece’s recent engagement, and a lemon cake seemed just the thing. Well, let me just say, it was a SMASH! Everyone went nuts! Decided to make a 3 layer cake, using 9” pans – I upped the quantities by half, and that seemed to work out well. Aside from that, didn’t mess with the ingredients at all, and it was sheer perfection!! Thanks for this fantastic recipe!!!
★★★★★
Hi Elizabeth, thanks so much for sharing and the awesome review! Really helpful to know it all worked out increasing the recipe, and so glad it was a smash!
One of the comments said she used fresh lemon juice. How much fresh lemon juice should I use instead of the lemon extract? Will lemon juice change the taste enough that it is worth my buying lemon extract?
It’s definitely going to have more lemon flavor if you use lemon extract.
I am planning to make this for husband Halloween baby..but do not have an electric hand mixer. Of course I can just use premade vanilla icing but would like to make the one from this recipe. Any other tips to make the icing without electric hand mixer ?
★★★★★
If the vegan butter is softened quite a bit and you use some serious arm power, it should be possible to make the frosting without an electric mixer though I haven’t tried it this way myself! All the best! 🙂
If I switch out the flour with a good all purpose gluten mix do you think it will work? Thanks! My daughter is in love with lemon so she’s getting a lemon cake this year!
It will work with a gluten-free all purpose blend. It might be a little dry though as gf flours tend to absorb more moisture. You might need to increase the oil a bit to compensate, maybe by 1/4 cup? I’m not certain as I haven’t tested this one as gluten-free yet so it would have to be experimented with. 🙂
Hi. I want to make this recipe into cupcakes. Is it possible for me to do so using the same ingredients above.? Or should I have them I’m only trying to make 24 standard size cupcakes.
We have a recipe for vegan lemon cupcakes. Our cupcake recipe makes 12 though, so you would need to make 2 batches. 🙂
I made this recipe exactly as written. It is the bomb! Truly one of the best cakes I’ve ever had, anywhere, any flavor. Vegan daughter loved it, non-vegan husband loved it. It is a marvel.
★★★★★
Fantastic Meggie, thanks so much for the awesome review! 🙂
can i use ganache frosting or vegan pastry cream inside because my kids want that?or whipped coconut cream?thanks
Any of those options would be delicious! 🙂