Truly Scrumptious

Soft and Luscious Lemon Cake

I do love a lemon cake. Finding a good dairy free one can be tricky. Sometimes just substituting vegan butter for the regular butter gives it a greasy flavour and you often have to experiment and use a bit less vegan butter. The version here uses extra virgin olive oil with coconut yoghurt, and the flavour is lovely, not greasy at all. This is one of those recipes that I made on the off-chance and I wish I had taken more photos to show you. It’s ridiculously easy, you basically have your dry ingredients in a bowl, whisk your wet ingredients in another bowl, and stir the two together. A loaf tin is a really convenient size, but you could make a round version if you like.
Wash your lemons before zesting – sometimes they have a waxy coating to make them look nice and shiny in the supermarket. Rinse them in warm water and pat dry (or buy them from a farmers’ market where they don’t indulge in this trickery!)

So to start you need to line a regular sized loaf tin (21cm x 11cm) with baking parchment, and set your oven to 165 degrees fan (or 175 degrees non fan).

Now mix the dry ingredients in a bowl – I use Australian cup measures, the weights are a rough guide:
1 cup (250ml or 125g) of plain flour
Half a cup (125ml or 65g) of almond flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt

Now get the wet ingredients ready:
Half a cup (125ml or 106g) of caster sugar – place in a bowl
2 tablespoons of lemon zest – add to the sugar – this adds a lot of the flavour and is my ideal amount of lemoniness. If you like it more subtle you can use less.
Three quarters of a cup (185ml) of plain coconut yoghurt (if you can eat dairy you can use a lovely thick Greek yoghurt if you prefer)
Half a cup (125ml) of extra virgin olive oil
A third of a cup (80ml) of lemon juice
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Okay so you should have the lemon zest and sugar stirred together in your bowl. Add all of the other wet ingredients. You can whisk with a hand whisk, but if you have an electric whisk, use that instead. The mixture will be quite runny but whisk it for a few minutes until you see some bubbles on the top.

Now stir in the dry ingredients. This will thicken it up so that it’s more like a muffin mix. Don’t worry if it’s a bit lumpy – it’s better not to overwork it.
Pour the mixture into the lined loaf tin.
Tap the tin on the work top to make sure the mixture gets down to the corners.
Then pop it in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes. It might take longer depending on your oven but have a listen. If the tin sounds very crackly, then the mixture is probably still cooking and needs longer, but try to see if a skewer comes out clean. If it does, then you can take the cake our of the oven. If it’s still making crackly noises, cool it in the tin as the residual heat will cook it a bit more, otherwise lift it out of the tin and onto a cooling rack.
If it needs longer in the oven, check it at 5 minute intervals and try the skewer again.

Make sure that cake is completely cool before icing. You can also use a lemon syrup to make it a drizzle cake if you don’t like icing. If you want it to be super lemony you can slice the cake in half horizontally and add a layer of lemon curd.

For the standard icing you need:
1 cup of icing sugar
2-3 teaspoons of lemon juice (add this very gradually – don’t let it get too runny)
Optional lemon zest (as much as you like but the zest of a small lemon should be about right)

Slowly add the lemon juice to the icing sugar and mix until you have a spreadable consistency that isn’t going to just slide off the cake. It needs to be fairly stiff, but not so stiff that you can’t spread it. Don’t worry if you get a few drips down the side of the cake – it all adds to the personality of your bake. If you are using lemon zest you can sprinkle some on top (you can also mix it into the icing – it doesn’t matter).

Try to leave it for an hour for the icing to settle, then put the kettle on for a cuppa and a slice. Leaving it will require a level of discipline as this super soft and tasty cake will be a firm favourite that you can’t wait to taste.

Lemon Cake

I do love a lemon cake, and this recipe makes a lovely light lemony sponge. The amounts for the frosting are approximate because I add and taste as I go along.
Set the oven to 170 deg C and grease and prepare two standard cake tins. I like to put baking parchment in the base and I tend to use springform tins because its easier to pop the cakes out once they’re done.

Ingredients:
Cake:
170g butter (or Nuttelex Buttery or other vegan butter/substitute if you are dairy free)
200g caster sugar
4 eggs beaten
320g plain flour
4 tablespoons of cornflour
Half a teaspoon of salt
One and a half teaspoons of baking powder
1 cup of milk (you can use soy, almond, coconut, or a mixture if you are dairy free)
A quarter of a cup (60 mls) of vegetable oil (don’t use olive oil – it will taste too olivey)
The zest of 2 lemons and 60mls of lemon juice (wash the lemons before zesting them)
Frosting:
Approx 150g of butter or non-dairy substitute
Approx 125g (1 cup) of icing sugar (powdered sugar)
Zest of 1 lemon plus some of the juice (see method)

Method:
1. Set the oven to 180 deg C (or 175 fan assisted).
2. Using an electric whisk, whisk the butter and sugar until light and creamy (2-3 minutes).
3. Add the eggs and whisk again for a minute or two.
4. Stir and fold in the dry ingredients – flour, cornflour, salt, lemon zest and baking powder.
5. Stir in the wet ingredients – milk, lemon juice, and oil.
6. The batter should be fairly liquid rather than thick . It’s okay if it is a little bit lumpy, but try to smooth out any big lumps.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared tins.
8. Bake for approx 20-30 minutes, but check them after 20 minutes. When they are lightly golden brown and a skewer or fork comes out of the mixture clean – they’re done.
9. Leave them for 5 minutes, then take the cakes out of the tins and cool on a cooling rack.

Frosting:
1. Using an electric whisk, whisk the butter or substitute until light and creamy.
2. Add the icing sugar slowly – it should thicken up.
3. Stir in the lemon zest.
4. Add some of the lemon juice and whisk again. Keep adding the lemon juice until the frosting is spreadable but not too runny. If you add too much lemon juice, add more icing sugar to thicken it up again. Taste the frosting to make sure it tastes good and isn’t too greasy or too acidic – adjust the sugar and lemon juice as required. If too lemony, you can always add water instead of juice to make it looser.
5. Place the base of the cake on a suitable plate or stand (you can line it with baking parchment if you like).
6. Spread half of the frosting in the middle of the cake and sandwich the halves together.
7. Spread or pipe the rest on top of the cake.
8. Put the kettle on… it’s tea and cake time !