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!
I love light and zesty cakes like these which aren't too sweet (but sweet enough to be called dessert). This cake has a similar flavor profile to my vegan lemon poppy seed muffins, whole lemon cake and lemon drizzle cake.
Key ingredients you'll need
Like the majority of my recipes, this vegan lemon cake uses only common 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 the dairy-free milk to make buttermilk which makes a cake more tender :). I used fresh lemon juice but bottled will also work.
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 the majority of my cakes, you'll only need 1 mixing bowl to make this lemon olive oil cake! I loathe doing dishes so the less bowls/equipment, the better :).
Simply add all the dry ingredients to a bowl and mix until combined. Add all the wet ingredients and mix until smooth. The final batter should be a little runny without any lumps of flour or streaks of wet ingredients.
Pour the cake batter into an 8-inch (20 cm) lined loaf pan and bake it in your preheated oven. So so easy! Your house will smell wonderful when the cake is ready to remove of the oven.
How to decorate this cake
This vegan lemon loaf is lovely with a simple powdered sugar icing which is made from only 2 ingredients. It sets at room temperature and doesn't collapse at room temperature for long periods of time (like buttercream does).
Alternatively, you can skip the icing and enjoy the vegan lemon cake plain, with berries or a light dusting of powdered sugar. This makes the cake a little less sweet!
Customising this cake
For a less sweet cake, I'd recommend enjoying the cake without the icing (or with some powdered sugar on top).
The sugar can be slightly reduced to 1 cup (200g) in this recipe. However, I wouldn't strongly recommend it because the sugar adds moisture and balances out the sour lemon flavour and slight bitterness from the zest.
You can use coconut sugar in this vegan lemon loaf but it changes the flavour profile. Imagine eating a lemony caramel cake! I haven't tested this cake with alternatives such as monk fruit sweetener or erythritol.
I don't ever recommend baking vegan sponge cakes using a liquid sweetener. This will make a cake too heavy and dense.
Yes, check out the notes in the grey recipe box at the bottom of this post
No, you don't haaavvvee to! The lemon zest adds a complexity of flavor and an extra lemon punch. For a more mild lemon flavour, omit the zest.
Yes, but I'd recommend using my lemon blueberry cake recipe. The recipe is similar to this olive oil cake but the batter is thicker so the blueberries don't sink!
More vegan citrus desserts
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Vegan Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Ingredients
Vegan Lemon Olive Oil Cake
- 2 ½ cups (315g) all-purpose plain flour, (note 1 for gluten free)
- 1 ¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- Pinch of any good quality salt, optional
- 1 cup (250g) dairy-free milk
- ½ cup (125g) extra virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup (80g) lemon juice and zest, (about 2-3 lemons)
- 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).
- Add all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) to a bowl. Mix until there are no lumps. Add all the wet ingredients (milk, oil, lemon juice/zest and vanilla) and mix until smooth. Pour into an 8 inch (20 cm) lined loaf tin.
- Bake the cake for 1 hour or until you can poke a skewer in the middle and there's no wet batter on it. As this is a moist cake, some crumbs on your skewer are fine.
- Allow the cake to cool in the loaf tin for 10 minutes then cool on a wire rack.
To make the icing:
- Add the lemon juice and sugar to a medium bowl and mix until smooth. Add more lemon juice (or dairy free milk) for a thinner icing 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
- To make this vegan lemon cake gluten free, substitute the plain flour for 1 ⅔ cups (165g) almond flour / blanched almond meal and 1 cup (160g) gluten free all-purpose flour.
- Alternatively, you can enjoy the cake plain, topped with fresh berries or a light dusting of powdered / icing sugar.
Nutrition
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This recipe is SPOT ON!, no eggs/dairy, and a crumb that is better than any other sweetbread, vegan or not, that I ever had. My mother could not stop eating it. First time making a loaf with Olive Oil too. This recipe was my "if it works, I will buy the cookbook" test. So, I am buying your book!
I will say, I baked both versions, the gluten free, and standard recipe. I am sorry to say the Gluten Free version of this, was an epic fail! Is it possible I made a mistake, of course, but I am 99.99% sure this is not what happened. I weighed, double checked, pre-heated, recipe to the letter, etc..The gluten free loaf, was in 10 minutes longer than the original version, (I did not bake both loaves in the oven at the same time, and the tester finally appeared to have acceptable moist crumb vs.raw batter). The top could not take anymore browning, so I took it out. The entire cake sunk while cooling, and when I cut into it, it was basically a solid block of oil. My guess is that the almond flour is too moist a flour, and cannot absorb all the oil/milk. I will try again, with just gluten free all purpose, and see how that goes. I am not deterred...and thank you, as the original loaf recipe is just insanely perfect!!!!
Hi Jennifer, I'm so so glad you and your mother enjoyed the regular version of this cake and that it surpassed any other cake you've ever had! What a lovely compliment!
But I'm so sorry that the gluten-free version didn't work for you! Most gluten-free flours (except coconut flour) are less absorbent than regular flour so that may explain why your loaf ended up being so dense. I wonder if it has to do with the brand of gluten-free flour that you used. I'm not saying that it was a bad brand, at all, but rather that all gluten-free flour blends contain different types of flour which absorb ingredients differently :)! But let me know how you go with just gluten-free all-purpose flour or a 1:1 baking blend. Thank you so much for your feedback, I appreciate it! x
Made it over Easter, it was easy to make and delicious.
Thank you so much Anthea for another fabulous recipe 🙂
Great recipe, really easy and tastes delish. I tweaked the recipe and also made a coconut and lime and a chocolate version.
This is one of my favorite cakes!
I have made it twice now - once for a friend’s birthday and the second time for a spring dinner party. Both times it received rave reviews.
My favorite thing about this cake is how moist and lemony it is. It is a showstopper! In making it in the loaf pan I found the cooking time to be quite a bit longer than one hour (for my oven it was more like 1 hour and 15 mins). The second time I made it, I doubled the recipe and made it in two 8 inch cake pans… Baking time was it was a little less than one hour (about 53 mins). Both times it was fantastic! Now I’m going for a third time - making it again for Easter Brunch.
Thank you so much!
I made this cake for my friend's birthday last weekend and everyone at the party absolutely loved it! At the end of the night, I found one of the girls drunkenly eating the leftovers with her hands because she loved it that much. Will be making it again this weekend to take to my family Easter brunch!
I made this yesterday followed the recipe but it was a disaster, just a heavy stodgy mess I had to throw it away
Oh I'm so sorry this cake didn't work out for you! Is it possible that the ingredients were mismeasured, for example if you used the cups measurement? A stodgy cake can also be due to old baking powder or an oven which isn't hot enough. I made the cake a few times with success so would love to figure out what happened with yours.
Hi Anthea, I was wondering if you could make this cake as like an 8inch round?
Hi Hannah, yes you can! It takes a similar amount of time to bake in an 8 inch round tin :).
thank you !!
Thanks Anthea! I volunteer at a local soup kitchen (which has very limited ingredients), and this has been a perfect recipe. I've now been baking this cakes for our patrons two weeks in a row – it's so easy to make, and everyone loves it. I also toast some coconut shreds and sprinkle on top 🙂
Aw that warms my heart that the cake was served at a local soup kitchen! So glad that everyone loves it and the addition of coconut shreds sounds perfect! Thanks Byron 🙂
Lovely fragrant cake that came out fluffy and moist. A lot of the recipes I’d checked out called for a lot of oil but Anthea’s got it just right. I also made a little tweak by using 1/2 a cup of sugar as opposed to 1 and 1/2cups, but 1 cup I think would’ve been perf ! Thanks so much again Anthea 🍋
So glad you enjoyed this cake Su-Yi! And thanks for your feedback about the oil and sugar too :).
This cake turned out so well! It reminds me of a pound cake. Your instructions were clear and easy to follow. I love that the flavors are subtle but still detectable. 5 stars--no question.
Aw I'm so happy you enjoyed this cake and you found everything helpful. Thanks so much for your feedback, I appreciate it a lot! x
Absolutely beautiful! Great balance of Lemon and sweetness. Will definitely be making this cake again. It was lucky Enough to last more than a day haha. It was honestly one of the best lemon cakes I have tasted. 🍋
Aw, that's the nicest comment, I'm so glad you enjoyed all the flavours in this cake!