Saturday 16 June 2012

Vegan lemon cake

I LOVE lemons and citrusy tastes and have been experimenting with vegan lemon cakes for a while.  This one has a lovely clean taste to it, not interfered with in any way.  I've felt others have been oddly "muddy" with the addition of other ingredients to substitute for the eggs. Here the lemon juice itself does the job by activating the baking powder and making everything light and fluffy.

One of these doesn't last long in our house!

You can make these with gluten free flour (I've done it by just subbing in Dove's Farm self raising with nothing else added as their mix already has xanthan gum in it).

Another option is little cupcakes.  One batch of batter will make you 12 normal sized cupcakes.  Bake these for about 18 minutes.


Ingredients

2 cups Self Raising Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
Zest & Juice of 1 Large Lemon (reserve 2 teaspoons of juice for the icing)
100ml Vegetable Oil
170ml Cold Water

Icing
1 cup Icing Sugar
2 tsp reserved lemon juice (plus a little water if needed)

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C

1. Measure out the flour and sugar using a measure all cup and add to a classic batter bowl.

2. Measure the baking powder using an adjustable measuring spoon and add to the bowl.

3. Zest the lemon with the Microplane zester, add to the flour and mix well with a stainless steel whisk to aerate.

4. Use the citrus press to squeeze the lemon into an easy read measuring cup, reserve two teaspoons for the icing,  and add to the bowl.

5. Add the oil and the water, measured in the easy read measuring cup, and mix thoroughly with a mix n scraper to make sure all is combined well.

6. Pour into a stoneware loaf pan or lined loaf pan and bake for 30 minutes until fully cooked. Check it's cooked by listening to it - put your ear up close and if it's making little crackly-pop noises it could take a few more minutes. Or poke with your finger - if it bounces back nicely, its done!

7. Remove from the loaf pan and cool on a stackable cooling rack.

8. When cool, make the icing for the top. Sieve the icing sugar and stir in lemon juice and drops of water until the consistency is wet enough to spread over the cake.

TIP:  If your lemons are small use the juice of one and a half in the cake and the rest for the icing.  My lemons seem to have been organic Monsters recently!

Thank you to The Ethical Chef for the inspiration and original recipe.

5 comments:

  1. I found you through Moo Free chocolates page and am loving your vegan cakes. I tried this one last night and it was AMAZING! Also have tried the banana and chocolate bread which my work colleagues could not believe was vegan. Looking forward to more! Savannah x

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi. I would like to know if I can substitute the sugar for agave syrup, and use spelt flour. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  3. You could certainly have a go! Spelt needs slightly less liquid than normal flour and as you are adding liquid with the agave I'd maybe reduce the water to about 125ml to compensate? Let me know how it goes! K x

    ReplyDelete
  4. With using self raising gluten free flour, do you still use the baking powder?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Julie, yes I do as the lack of eggs means you need a good reaction between the raising agent and the acid of the lemon to give the bubbles to make it light and fluffy.
      K x

      Delete

I would be delighted if you left me a comment , so I know I'm not just speaking to myself!