We love this lemon loaf. It reminds us of the lemon loaf at Starbucks – only it’s cruelty free. C’mon Starbucks, you have to get more vegan options in your baking case and this would be terrific. You’ve promised some for a while now and there are still only 2 or 3 bagels in that case and nothing to satisfy a vegan sweet tooth. We found this recipe here and it’s delicious. We used the recipe pretty much as written, so check out the link or visit the site http://www.veganfamilyrecipes.com to learn more and see all of their delicious recipes.
Lemon Loaf Cake
for the cake
3/4 cup All Purpose Flour (we used 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour and omitted the whole wheat)
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 cup Raw Cane Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 cup melted Vegan Butter or Coconut Oil (we used Earth Balance)
1 1/4 cup Almond Milk or other plant based milk – See Notes
Juice of 1 Lemon roughly 1/3 cup
For the Lemon Coconut Oil Frosting
1/4 cup Coconut Oil not melted! (use refined coconut oil to avoid a coconut flavor
4 tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 teaspoon Lemon Zest optional (don’t skip the zest, it really heightens the flavor)
2 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar (make sure you sift out the clumps)
pinch of Salt
Additional plant based milk to attain the desired frosting consistency
Blueberries for the top of the cake – optional
Preheat oven to 355F (180C). Grease and flour a 10 inch (26cm) loaf pan.
Using a wooden spool, mix together flours, sugar, and baking powder in a medium sized mixing bowl. Add melted butter or coconut oil, milk and lemon juice to flour mixture and stir together.
Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake on lower rack for 50 to 60 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Make sure not to under bake as the cake will collapse. It will still be really delicious, but just won’t look as good.
Remove pan from oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before removing cake from pan. Allow cake to fully cool on a cooling rack.
Lemon Coconut Oil Frosting
Cream together coconut oil, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
Add salt and 1/2 cup powdered sugar and beat together on medium speed, slowly adding more and more powdered sugar until desired consistency is achieved. You can also do what I did and add all the sugar and then add the plant based milk until you have the consistency you want. You’ll have lots and lots of frosting.
We made the frosting right after we put the cake in the oven and covered it and let it rest on the counter until we frosted the cooled cake. Since our frosting was relatively loose we were able to scrape it out of the bowl with a spatula and spread it over the cooled cake easily, but it was stiff enough to adhere to the cake really well. We put the optional blueberries on top, which made it pretty and added a nice contrast to the lemon flavor in the frosting and the cake.
These notes are right from the website and you definitely want to read them for your best tasting cake.
1) You can use all whole wheat flour or just all purpose flour in this recipe as well. Using only whole wheat flour will make for a denser cake.
2) Any unsweetened plant based milk can be used for this cake EXCEPT oat milk. I (this is the website talking) found this out the hard way. Oat milk makes this cake taste very bizarre and not in a good way.
3) If coconut oil is very hard smash it with a fork before trying to cream it together with the lemon juice. If the coconut oil is so hard that the fork doesn’t break it apart then heat it in a warm water bath or microwave. Heat only until softened, not melted!
4.) Do not use treated and waxed lemons to get your lemon zest. Best bet is to use organic lemons. Always check the labels, they should let you know if they are waxed or not.