Lemon Ginger Cake Recipe (and It's Vegan!)

I love my veggies, always have. Oven-roasted vegetables and hearty soups are my wintertime favorites and in the warmer months nearly every meal is a big, fresh, green salad. So, it's not usual for me to "accidentally" toss together a vegan meal. Vegan mains and sides are a no-brainer.

But vegan desserts? With the exception of a simple fruit salad, they almost never happen at my house.

What? A Cake without Eggs?

Until recently, I had always shied away from making vegan desserts. When I did occasionally come across vegan dessert recipes in the past I would often be put off by long recipes that seemed overly complicated or had atypical ingredients—like tapioca flour, agave syrup, coconut sugar, vegan "butter" and "flax eggs."

This is true of any recipe, really, not just vegan ones. I have a very, very well stocked pantry, so when I'm browsing recipes for ideas I don't even look twice those that require ingredients that I don't already have or that can't be easily found somewhere in my neighborhood. It can be limiting, but I only have so much time to dedicate to shopping and cooking. Plus, I like to keep my recipes as simple and uncomplicated as possible.

But, always open to a culinary challenge, I decided to explore the world of vegan baking to see if, in fact, vegan desserts could be made in a reasonable amount of time with standard pantry ingredients and still stand up next to the non-vegan sweets we all know and love.

They most definitely can.

Luscious Lemony Goodness

It seems I have been on a serious lemon kick lately. If you've tried the cóc de brossat cake or fluffy lemon blueberry pancakes you know that I like the lemon flavor to be front and center. But, tempting as it may sound, simply adding more lemon juice isn't the answer. When combined with baking soda, the acid in lemon juice performs a very important function in cakes: together they act to leaven it. Too much acid can cause the chemical reaction to happen too quickly and leave your cake falling flat.

Instead, lemon zest is the perfect way to enhance the lemon flavor; this cake had a hearty two tablespoons of it in the batter alone. The lemon syrup that is poured over it after baking also adds even more lemon flavor, so if by now you're worried that the lemony-ness might be over the top for your liking, you can skip the syrup altogether. The cake is finished off with a simple glaze that includes—you guessed it—even more lemon zest. You can omit the lemon zest from the glaze, but I find that it helps balance the cloying sweetness of the sugar.

Which brings me to the ginger. Its addition to the recipe came late in my trials, but I find it gives the cake a more complex, warmer flavor and a firmer crumb. Adding it to the glaze helps to balance the sweetness and gives it depth as well. In my cake-making experiments I got perfectly lovely results without adding ginger to either, but it is definitely more interesting with it. Next time I make it I might even consider adding more ginger to the glaze to spice it up a bit.

If, like me, you're new to the vegan baking experience, or you need a go-to recipe for when you've got vegan guests coming over, I challenge you to give this recipe a go. I'll bet that if you don't tell anyone that it's vegan, they'd never guess it.

INGREDIENTS

For the cake:

  • 75 ml vegetable oil
  • 75 g sugar
  • 100 g brown sugar
  • 220 ml oat milk (or other non-dairy milk)
  • 2 Tbsp lemon zest
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 250 g all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 5 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped

For the lemon syrup :

  • 2 Tbsp powdered sugar
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice

For the glaze:

  • 750 g powdered sugar
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 Tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
  • 1 Tbsp lemon zest

METHOD

  1. Line loaf pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 170°C (325°F).
  2. Mix vegetable oil and sugars. Add in oat milk, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla and salt and stir well.
  3. Add flour and baking soda and mix until just combined; batter will be thick.
  4. Gently fold in fresh ginger.
  5. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan and bake 35-45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  6. While baking, prepare the lemon syrup. Mix together the powdered sugar and lemon juice until blended.
  7. While the cake is still hot, gently poke small holes in the cake and then slowly pour the syrup over the cake. Allow to cool completely.
  8. For the glaze, blend the lemon juice and fresh ginger in with a immersion blender (miniprimer). Whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon-ginger mixture. Once smooth add the lemon zest.
  9. When the cake has completely cooled, drizzle the glaze over the cake. I usually have a good bit of glaze left over and serve it at the table for those who want to add a bit more of a lemony kick to their slice.