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Basic Lemon Cake


  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: Makes 24 cupcakes, one large 9 x 13 rectangular cake or two 9 inch round layers. 1x

Description

This basic dairy-free and egg-free lemon cake can be easily adapted to other flavors. You can add spices, other citrus flavors, vanilla, rum, be creative!


Ingredients

Scale

Wet Ingredients:

  • 2 cups dairy-free milk (I used Silk Coconut Milk)
  • 1 T. cider vinegar
  • 2/3 cup oil (I used melted coconut oil)
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 T. vanilla
  • 1/4 teaspoon lemon oil (or 1 teaspoon fine lemon zest, don’t use lemon extract or the cake will taste like floor polish)

Dry Ingredients:

  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare your cake pan. I used the birthday as an excuse to buy a new rectangular cake pan, but a Pyrex casserole pan should work fine. Fold a sheet of parchment so it lays crosswise into a 9 x 13 pan and hangs up over the edges (this way you can ‘lift’ the cake out of the pan by the paper to the cooling rack) . Spray well with cooking spray.
  2. Whisk dairy-free milk and vinegar together in a medium bowl and let thicken. Then add the sugar, oil and flavorings. Mix well.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, soda, baking powder and salt. My cornstarch and baking soda are always lumpy, so I sift mine into the bowl through a mesh strainer to get out the lumps.
  4. Carefully dump and mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Just blend until most of the lumps are out. Don’t beat the heck out of it.
  5. Pour batter into your prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the center is set and you can poke a knife into the center and it comes out clean. Let the cake rest for a few minutes before lifting out and cooling on a rack. Cool completely before frosting.

Notes

This is a great cake to try some coconut oil. The coconut flavor is very subtle and tastes rather buttery.Other vegetable oils work fine, but you’ll need to crank up the lemon or vanilla flavors, otherwise the cake tastes like bland cornbread. 

Lemon oil is amazing stuff, a little goes a long while, and it lasts forever in the fridge. It is not the same as lemon extract or lemon flavoring, those tend to have an overpowering lemon flavor that can make a cake taste like floor cleaner. 

  • Category: Dessert
  • Method: Baked
  • Cuisine: American

Keywords: dairy-free lemon cake, egg-free lemon cake, vegan lemon cake