Moist and rich vegan lemon pound cake topped with a lemon glaze. Deliciously lemony and tangy, and easy and fun to make!
Ever since making my basic vegan pound cake recipe, I have wanted to make a vegan lemon pound cake.
After doing all the heavy lifting of figuring out how to even make a pound cake when I made our basic vegan pound cake, this one was a total breeze and complete pleasure to make.
Topped with a delicious lemon glaze it is total lemony perfection.
The lemon flavor in the cake is subtle and comes from a little lemon extract and some lemon zest. The vegan buttermilk is also made with a little lemon juice.
And the frosting is a simple mix of powdered sugar, lemon juice and lemon extract.
Tenting with Foil
This cake bakes for an hour, which can lead to excessive browning on top. So the trick is to bring it out after 40 minutes and tent it with foil and then put it back in for the last 20 minutes.
So basically you wrap the whole loaf pan in foil so that there is a tent shape on top, this is so that the foil doesn’t press down on your cake from the top, but protects it from getting overly browned.
Bringing it out at the 40 minute point doesn’t effect the rise of the cake or cause any sinking effect (as it would do if you opened the oven at an earlier point) because all the rising has already happened at this stage and it’s close to done.
The cake is quite dense, which is what you want in a pound cake. It’s not super light and fluffy, but it’s not meant to be. It’s still probably lighter than a traditional pound cake, but you can see from the photos that it has a fairly tight crumb.
The moisture comes from vegan butter and homemade vegan buttermilk. The lift comes from 3 tsp of baking powder, which is the maximum amount you can use in this recipe, any more and you’d have it rising too high for the structure to support and then you get sinking in the middle.
The result is a lovely lemon loaf with delicious lemon flavor that really pops with the lemon glaze.
So if you love pound cake, then this vegan lemon pound cake will definitely not disappoint! It is:
- Super easy
- Lemony
- Moist
- Rich
- Dense (but not heavy)
- Topped with a lemon glaze
If you wanted to serve this with something else like a scoop of vegan lemon ice cream, that would be divine too! Pound cake really works well served alongside other things.
Keep it covered at room temperature where it will stay fresh for a few days or covered in the fridge where it will stay good for up to a week.
More Lemony Vegan Desserts!
- Vegan Lemon Cake
- Vegan Lemon Cupcakes
- Vegan Lemon Pie
- Vegan Lemon Cookies
- Vegan Banana Cake with Lemon Frosting
So what do you think of this vegan lemon pound cake? Let us know in the comments and please rate the recipe as well, thanks so much!
Sign up to our email list for a fabulous 10-recipe ebook (entirely free!) and you’ll stay updated with all our latest recipes posted to the blog.
Vegan Lemon Pound Cake
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 60 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 10
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Moist and rich vegan lemon pound cake topped with a lemon glaze. Deliciously lemony and tangy, and easy and fun to make!
Ingredients
For the Lemon Pound Cake:
- 1/2 cup (112g) Vegan Butter
- 1 cup (200g) White Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Lemon Extract
- 2 cups (250g) All Purpose Flour*
- 3 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 cup (240ml) Vegan Buttermilk
- 2 Tbsp Lemon Zest*
For the Lemon Glaze:
- 1 cup (120g) Powdered Sugar
- 1 and 1/2 Tbsp Lemon Juice (freshly squeezed)
- 1/8 tsp Lemon Extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray a 9×5 inch loaf pan with non-stick spray and line it with parchment paper, letting the parchment paper hang over the sides so that the cake can be easily lifted out. Set aside.
- Add the vegan butter and white sugar to an electric mixer and cream them together. Then add in the vanilla extract and the lemon extract and mix in.
- Sift the all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add the baking powder and salt and mix together.
- Add the dry ingredients in with the creamed butter and sugar mix.
- Prepare your vegan buttermilk by adding 1 Tbsp lemon juice into a measuring jug and then adding soy milk up to the 1 cup (240ml) line. Stir it in so it curdles. You can also use almond milk for this step if you prefer.
- Pour the vegan buttermilk in with the other ingredients and mix in with a spoon until combined, but be careful not to overmix.
- Add in the lemon zest and stir in. The batter will be thick.
- Transfer the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth it down evenly.
- Place into the oven and bake for 60 minutes. At the 40 minute mark, bring it out and tent the top with foil so that the foil makes a tent shape over the top, and return it to the oven for a final 20 minutes.*
- Lift the cake out with the parchment paper and place onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely before you add the lemon glaze.
- Add the powdered sugar, lemon juice and lemon extract to a bowl and stir it in until well combined. You can use an electric mixer for this if you want to, but I found it very easy to just mix it in with a spoon.
- Spoon the glaze onto the cake and spread it around the top evenly. Allow the glaze to set (if you put the cake into the fridge for 10 minutes, covered, the glaze sets very nicely) before slicing and serving.
Notes
*Weigh your flour for the most accurate/best results.
*2 Tbsp of lemon zest is what you’d get from about 2 lemons, depending on the size of the lemons of course. A large lemon might provide enough zest by itself.
*Tenting with foil stops the cake from browning too much on top.
- Category: Dessert, Cakes, Baking
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Vegan
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Slice (of 10)
- Calories: 278
- Sugar: 31.9g
- Sodium: 363mg
- Fat: 6g
- Saturated Fat: 1.1g
- Carbohydrates: 52.9g
- Fiber: 0.9g
- Protein: 3.3g
Keywords: vegan lemon pound cake
My pan was slightly smaller than the recipe. I can confirm that it works really well as a microwave mug cake if anyone else finds the self in the same situation!
Oh haha, good to know! 🙂
Thank you for the reply to my previous question about freezing this cake.
Now I’m wondering how it would work if the cake was drizzled with a lemon glaze as in lemon drizzle cake.
Maybe I will try this.
Do you think the cake would freeze, without the icing?
Hi Mary, yes you can freeze it! 🙂
Thank you for the recipe, it has worked perfectly, so moist and lovely lemony flavour. My omni in laws couldn’t believe it was vegan. I swapped the lemon extract for lemon essential oil.
I am fairly new to vegan baking and your website has so many simple recipes, I will definitely be trying more of them.
Hi Emily! So happy it was a success. So glad you found our blog and I hope you’ll find lots of recipes you’ll love! xo
Thanks so much for this recipe! My dad loves pound cake so I’m planning on making this for Father’s Day. I noticed you said the baking time may vary if round pans are used. I’m hoping I can make this in a bundt pan and still get a good result. I’ll keep you posted! Would you recommend buttering and flouring the pan before baking in my bundt pan so that it’s easier to take out?
★★★★★
Hi Christal, I haven’t tried this in a bundt pan, but I think the baking times should be around the same since it’s done in a single pan, but just keep a check on it. I usually use parchment paper plus non stick spray, but I don’t think parchment paper is something you would use in a bundt pan so if you usually have good success with buttering and flouring the pan then stick to what works for you. All the best with it and let us know how it goes! 🙂
Hi Alison! Thank you again for this wonderful recipe! My dad absolutely loved his cake and the bundt pan turned out PERFECT! The butter and flour helped the cake slide out with ease and it was a beautiful, as well as delicious, cake. I posted a photo under your Pinterest pin if you’re interested in seeing how it turned out. Many many thanks!
★★★★★
Hi Christal! So glad to hear it was a hit and worked great in the bundt pan! I just saw the pin on pinterest and it looks amazing! Thanks so much for updating us and the wonderful rating. 🙂
Could Almond flour be used in place of the flour?
Hi Jennifer, I don’t think that would work. If you want it to be gluten-free you could try a gluten-free all purpose flour blend.
Absolutely scrumptious. I will be making this on regular rotation.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe 🙂
★★★★★
So happy it turned out great! Thanks for the wonderful review. xo
Can this icing be changed to vanilla? How would I go about that? Thank you!
Sure, just use non-dairy milk instead of lemon juice and vanilla extract instead of lemon extract.
I made this cake for my mom on Mother’s Day and she loved it! Everyone who has tasted it (vegan and non-vegan) has complimented me on it.
I made only two slight variations.
I sifted my dry ingredients before adding them to the butter/sugar mixture.
And, my icing wasn’t pourable, so I added a bit more lemon juice and a tsp of almond milk to it.
I will definitely make this cake again and recommend it to anyone who likes a great lemon pound cake.
Can’t wait to try out some of your other recipes!
★★★★★
Hi Stuart, so glad it was a success! Thanks for sharing your adjustments and the wonderful review. 🙂
This is my new go-to lemon loaf recipe. It’s absolutely delicious and moist! And it’s super lemony! I made it for the first time several months ago for my coworkers, who devoured it and also could not believe it was vegan.
★★★★★
So glad to hear! Thanks for the awesome review! xo
Absolutely delicious! My dad and husband (not vegan) made me ice it just out of the oven because they couldn’t wait to eat it! It got rave reviews all round, but it fell apart when I sliced it, I think because it was still warm haha! Will definitely make it again 🙂
★★★★★
So glad it was enjoyed! Yes cakes are so much more fragile when still warm (but so good!). Thanks for the awesome review. xo
Subbed rice milk for soy – also works fine
one kid allergic to lots of stuff – other one loves baked goods.
this one satisfies both the sweet tooth, and the sour tooth and suits both kids just fine
★★★★
Thanks for sharing Krista! 🙂
Make all the time – brilliant cake! Thank you.
★★★★★
Yay! Thanks for the awesome review. 🙂
The. BEST. lemon. cake. EVER. I made this for my partner, and it’s so good we’ve both eaten 3 slices. Had to come upstairs to remove myself from the temptation! Also, I made this with white rye flour as I’m wheat intolerant and it definitely didn’t spoil the end result! Thank you so much for a great recipe – I look forward to trying some more!
★★★★★
That is wonderful to hear Katharine, thanks so much for sharing! So glad it worked with white rye flour, that’s super helpful info. 🙂
I have a query. In the vegan apple cake recipe I find the weights confusing in grams. i.e. 2 1/2 cups is 312 gms. 1 1/2 cups is 300 gms, 1 1/2 cups apple is 188 gms. is this correct? thank you
Hi Lynn, yes it’s all correct. Different items have different densities, so a cup of feathers will weigh a lot less than a cup of stones just to put it in simplistic terms. So this is why when we are dealing with the measurements in grams it will be different according to the density of the item. So a cup of flour is 125g, a cup of sugar is 200g. This is all correct. 🙂
I made this and it is AMAZING!
I plan on baking this as a birthdaycake soon, Can I bake this in a 24cm round cake pan?
Hi Maddie, I’m not entirely sure about switching it for a round cake pan, I think it would be fine, possibly a different baking time, but I haven’t tested it. You could also try our vegan lemon cake which is made in round cake pans.
Hi! Instead of vegan butter can I use coconut oil?
Hi Jenny, pretty sure you can! Let us know how it works out. 🙂
This tasted delicious but the texture was really dense! I have loved all your other recipes I have tried so wondered what I did wrong!
Hi Beth, it is supposed to be quite dense, it’s not a ‘light and fluffy’ cake. It’s not supposed to be, traditionally a pound cake is quite dense and this is discussed in the post. It is supposed to be very tasty though. But if you want something more light and fluffy then our vegan lemon cake would be more suited. All the best! 🙂
I am not vegan but was just out of eggs when I had the urge to bake and found this. It was delicious and I will definitely make again!
★★★★★
Fantastic! So happy to hear it was a success, thanks so much for the great review. 🙂
This was a really great recipe! So easy! My daughter can’t have dairy and we were so thrilled to find this. It was so much better than we imagined. We did not have lemon extract but as a nice person commented earlier we just switched it out with lemon juice and it was still super good. Thank you so much for sharing this great recipe with those of us who need dairy free but I’m sure it will be a hit with anyone! And it’s nice to know this is healthier than adding butter, eggs and milk. It felt almost guilt free!
★★★★★
So glad you enjoyed it Andrea! Thanks so much for the fantastic review. 🙂