Easy vegan lemon olive oil cake using only 6 key ingredients and 1 bowl. This cake is fluffy, tender and light and perfect for Spring!
This light and zesty cake has a similar flavor profile to my vegan lemon poppy seed muffins, vegan lemon cake and lemon drizzle cake.
Key ingredients you'll need
This vegan lemon loaf uses only everyday ingredients including:
Ingredient notes
Extra Virgin Olive Oil adds moisture and flavor. Some types of olive oils are sweet while others are a little peppery so your cake will adopt the flavor of your particular oil.
Lemon juice and zest and lots of it for extra zing! Lemon juice is acidic so reacts with dairy-free milk to make buttermilk which gives a cake a tender crumb. I used fresh lemon juice but bottled will also work.
Granulated sugar for the lightest vegan olive oil cake! Alternatively, you may use coconut sugar however it'll make your cake a little denser and darker in color.
You don't need any special egg replacers as the cake stays moist and fluffy from the olive oil, sugar and baking powder!
A complete list of ingredients, quantities and instructions are in the gray recipe card at the bottom of this post.
How to prepare the batter
Like most of my cakes, you'll only need one bowl to prepare this vegan lemon olive oil cake!
In a large mixing bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients, add all the wet ingredients and mix until smooth. The final batter should be a little runny without no lumps of dry flour or streaks of wet ingredients. Alternatively, you may use a stand mixer or hand mixer but be careful to not overmix the batter!
Pour the cake batter into an 8-inch (20 cm) lined loaf pan and bake it in your preheated oven. Your house will smell wonderful while your vegan olive oil cake is baking!
Decoration suggestions
This vegan lemon loaf is lovely with a simple 2-ingredient icing that sets at room temperature.
For a more decadent cake, you can top it with lemon buttercream frosting or cream cheese frosting (such as from my ginger cake recipe).
If you don't have a big sweet tooth, you can top the unbaked cake with sliced almonds (just keep an eye on the almonds so they don't burn). After baking, dust the top with powdered sugar or serve with yogurt and berries.
Can I bake this cake in a different pan?
This vegan olive oil cake will bake well in any loaf pan that's 8-inches or longer. If you're using a longer one, your cake will just be shorter.
Alternatively, you can use an 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pan. For easy removal, use a springform pan!
To make cupcakes, I recommend using my vegan lemon cupcakes recipe which fits perfectly in 1 muffin pan.
Customizing this cake
For a less sweet cake, I recommend enjoying the cake without the icing (or only with powdered sugar on top).
The sugar can be slightly reduced to 1 cup (200g). However, keep in mind that sugar adds moisture to the cake, and balances out the sour lemon flavor and slight bitterness from the zest.
Orange juice is sweeter and less acidic than lemon juice so I recommend using more orange juice. Reduce the amount of milk and replace some of it with orange juice. Remember to use the orange zest for extra flavor!
I recommend using my lemon blueberry cake recipe. It's similar to this vegan olive oil cake but the batter is thicker so the blueberries don't sink!
More vegan lemon desserts
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Vegan Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Ingredients
Vegan Lemon Olive Oil Cake
- 2 ½ cups (315g) all-purpose plain flour
- 1 ¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- Pinch of salt, optional
- 1 cup (250g) dairy-free milk, room temperature
- ½ cup (125g) extra virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup (80g) lemon juice, (note 1)
- ~2 tablespoons lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
To decorate (optional, see note 2 for alternatives)
- 1 ½ cups (150g) powdered sugar / icing sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 cup (150g) fresh berries
Instructions
To make the cake:
- Preheat your oven to 180°C (355°F). Line an 8 inch (20 cm) loaf tin with parchment paper.
- Add all the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) to a large bowl. Mix until there are no lumps. Add all the wet ingredients (milk, oil, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla) and mix until smooth.
- Pour the lemon cake batter into your prepared pan. Smooth the surface if necessary.
- Bake the cake for 1 hour or until you can insert a toothpick in the center of the cake and there's no wet batter on it. As this is a moist cake, some crumbs on your toothpick are fine. If the top of the cake is browning too quickly on top, carefully tent the pan with aluminum foil.
- Allow the cake to cool in the loaf tin for 10 minutes then let the cake cool on a cooling rack.
To make the icing:
- Add the lemon juice and sugar to a medium bowl and mix until smooth. Add more lemon juice or non-dairy milk for a thinner icing (like a lemon glaze) or more powdered sugar for a thicker icing.
- Drizzle the icing over your cooled cake. If desired, top the cake with berries just before serving.
- Store the cake in an airtight container at room temperature for a day or in the fridge for up to 3 days. The cake can be stored without the icing in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Notes
- You'll need around 2-3 medium lemons to yield the amount of lemon juice and zest for the recipe.
- Alternatively, you can enjoy the cake plain, topped with fresh berries or a light dusting of powdered / icing sugar.
Nutrition
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Hi Anthea, would this recipe work in a bundt pan (if I scale up of course)?
Hi Olivia, sorry for the late reply! Yes, it should work well in a bundt pan 🙂
Did the gf version disappear? I am not seeing notes for it and I made the cake without realizing there was a gf version and I’m a wondering if batter might be too thin but it’s already in the oven:(
Hi Rose, I had to remove the gluten-free option because it was providing inconsistent results for readers. Some readers were able to use a 1:1 gluten-free flour blend (or a combination of flours) whereas it didn't work for others.
Thanks for the recipe! Could you use orange instead of lemon? Or a mix of both? Thanks!
Hey! Yes, orange juice will work well but it has a milder flavor than lemon juice so you'll need to add a little more. Try replacing some of the milk with orange juice :). A mix of lemon and orange juice will also work. I hope that helps!
Very good, I will make again. I was looking for a recipe as I have a lot of Meyer lemons on my tree right now. I skipped the frosting. The cake has just the right amount of sweetness without the icing. Also, I used 1 cup of whole wheat flour (spelt) and 1.5 cups white wheat flour. I really like that is so simple to make.
Can I substitute the flour for almond flour or oat flour ??
Hi Jo, normally almond flour and oat flour needs to be combined with starch or all-purpose gluten-free flour to work in vegan cakes. I've tried it with almond flour and AP gluten-free flour but had to increase the amounts of flour a little to make it work (I just added more and more flour until the batter resembled the pictures).
I followed the recipe as written and found it was a really easy cake to make and I ended up with a lovely fluffy moist lemon cake. Couldn't be happier with this recipe!
Moist and tasty and tart sweet. Following others’ advice I just did one cup of sugar. I went a bit heavier on the lemon juice and added a half a ripe mashed banana since the batter seemed too thick at first. Adding the icing on top really kicks it up a notch. I like that olive oil is healthier than butters which have a lot of saturated fat.
The GF version didn’t work for me at all. The cake turned out soggy with unpleasant oily texture and unbalanced flavour. After reading other ratings seems I had a similar experience for the gf version. Very strange, I baked several recipes from your blog and they usually turned out great. Might be a difference in GF flour.
Oh I'm so incredibly sorry that it didn't work for you! I'll retest the gf version with a few different brands of flour and see if I can replicate what happened. I'm glad that you liked other recipes from my blog though. Thanks for letting me know x