This vegan lemon drizzle cake is so moist, so zingy and so tasty you’ll keep coming back for more. Dairy and egg free, this cake uses store cupboard staples to create so no need for unnecessary trips to the supermarket for ingredients you struggle to pronounce.
Lemon Drizzle Cake is my absolute favorite kind of cake, it’s the one cake I’ll gravitate towards in a bakery. I will always judge a new tea and cake spot by the quality of their lemon drizzle cake. It’s such an easy bake but can often be disappointing. Nothing worse than a dry lem-driz or god forbid, a bland lem-driz! We do an extremely popular gluten free version in the bakery but I’d never attempted a vegan version until recently.
Vegan baking always fascinates me, learning how different ingredients act in baking is just a wondrous thing. Like, how can seeds and water act as an egg replacement, blows my mind. But, with that in mind, you won’t find any fancy shmancy ingredients in this Vegan Lemon Drizzle Cake. I didn’t want y’all running out to buy tubs of this or that only to need to use one tablespoon, oh no. This cake uses store cupboard basics, if you’re a regular baker you’ll likely already have everything you need.
I always like to top my drizzle cakes with a glaze icing as well as the drizzle. Double the yumminess! If you’re not a fan of overly sweet deserts, you just just leave the glace icing (water icing) off and stick with the drizzle for a more traditional cake. Then you can decorate it how you like, piles of berries, sprinkles galore, plain and simple.It’s up to you.
Tips for making Vegan Lemon Drizzle Cake:
- Milk – You can use any dairy free milk you like in this recipe. I like oat as I use it in my porridge in the morning but just go with your personal favorite.
- Vinegar – Again, you can use white wine vinegar in this recipe if you don’t have apple cider. Just don’t use malt, I beg of you!
- Bake time – This cake can take anywhere from 45 minutes to and hour to fully bake depending on your oven. Mine was done in 50 minutes but start checking it with a cake skewer from 45 minutes, every 5 minutes until ready. If the cake is starting to brown too much, cover the top with a loose sheet of tin foil.
- Citrus – The lemon is interchangeable in this recipe, you can use any citrus fruit you have available. Lime, orange and grapefruit are all great options. Or go St Clements and use lemon, lime and orange together.
- Tin – I’m constantly getting messages asking if it’s ok to bake cakes in a different sized tin and I’ll always advise against it. I’ve only tested this recipe in a 2lb loaf tin so I have no idea how it would react in a round tin or as cupcakes. Always try to stick to the correct tin to avoid disappointment.
- Icing – I like a thick glaze on my lemon drizzle, it’s pure nostalgia from the cakes my gran would make in the 80’s. You do you, go as thin or as thick as you’d like. Or if you’ve made a mistake and added too much juice to the icing, don’t worry, it’ll still taste great.
- Freezing – As usual you can freeze the un-iced cake for up to 3 months. Just wrap in a double layer of cling film. Defrost at room temperature for a few hours.
Vegan Lemon Drizzle Cake
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 8 slices 1x
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 350ml oat milk
- 1tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 300g self raising flour
- 200g caster sugar
- 100ml sunflower oil
- 2tbsp grated lemon zest (around 2 large lemons)
For the Drizzle:
- 2 tbsp Caster Sugar
- 2 tbsp Lemon Juice
For the Icing:
- 250g icing sugar
- 2–3tbsp lemon juice
- Assorted berries to decorate
Instructions
-
- Preheat your oven to 170°C, grease and line your loaf tin with baking parchment. Add the oat milk to a jug and stir in the apple cider vinegar and set it aside for a few minutes.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add the flour and sugar and mix slightly. Add the oat milk and apple cider vinegar mixture to the dry ingredients along with the oil and lemon zest and mix until thoroughly combined.
- pour the cake batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 45-50 minutes until risen and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
- Once the cake has baked mix the 2tbsp of caster sugar and lemon juice together then pour evenly over the warm cake. Allow to cool completely in the tin.
- Once the cake has cooled, run a sharp knife around the edge of the cake and remove from the tin. In a bowl combine the icing sugar and 2tbsp of the lemon juice, if the icing is a too thick add a little more lemon juice until you get the consistency you’d like. Drizzle the icing over the cake and decorate with berries and sprigs of mint.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Vegan
Keywords: Lemon, Drizzle, Vegan, Baking, Cake
Lovely cake, easy to make and the deco is fantastic!
★★★★★
What a beautiful presentation. This cake sounds delicious. A great dessert for any day of the week, and it would be great on a brunch menu too.
★★★★★
This is gorgeous! I LOVE lemon desserts. This is going to be perfect for my next brunch with the girls…they’ll go gaga over just how pretty is!
★★★★★
Wow, I wish I could make this as beautiful as yours with the drizzle and the berries, but delicious nevertheless!
What a stunning cake! The texture of this vegan lemon cake is sublime and I’m so glad to have a vegan recipe that uses simple supermarket ingredients. Thank you!
This is totally irresistible!! Everyone at my house was impressed!
★★★★★
what a beautiful decoration.. Its totally fresh .. nice looking..
Everyone was impressed with this cake, been asked to make it again and it’s only been finished an hour!!
I used defrosted frozen fruit on top which wasn’t ideal visually but definitely tasted fab.
★★★★★