Easy Vegan Lemon Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
This is the best vegan lemon cake you’ll ever have! Super tender, moist, easily gluten free, and layered with a dairy free vanilla cream cheese frosting, even non-vegans will love this sweet and moist eggless lemon cake!
Why you’ll love this vegan lemon cake recipe
You’re going to love this vegan lemon cake for a few reasons, and the last one is the biggest.
First off, this lemon cake is the definition of tender and moist. Seriously, it has the perfect crumb, and is the best balance of moist without being gummy or stodgy.
This secretly vegan cake is also just full to the brim of wonderfully zesty lemon and sweet vanilla, which helps to balance out the enlivening flavor of the lemon. This fruity vegan cake is the perfect balance of being light yet indulgent.
What’s more, this cake is entirely vegan, eggless, dairy free, and can be made gluten free!
Now this is how I know you’re going to love this lemon cake:
My mom, who is a self-proclaimed detective of anything that is vegan or not vegan when it comes to baked goods, declared that this easy lemon cake was sublime.
Okay, so I do get really really excited whenever my mom really approves of a recipe because then I know, and time has proved me right on this, that everyone will love this recipe, vegan or not.
This lemon cake is the perfect spring dessert for your Easter brunch, Mother’s Day brunch, or any spring party!
Ingredients
For this egg free lemon cake, you’ll need:
- Flour: I recommend using cake flour here, or oat flour (which is what I used for the cake in the photos). This is what gives this cake the ultimate tender and crumb-like texture. If you don’t have cake flour on hand, you can also sift in 1 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot starch to your all-purpose flour. Additionally, if you need gluten-free, you can use gluten free 1:1 baking flour or oat flour, adding in the cornstarch/arrowroot starch for the cake flour texture.
- Sugar: I used granulated sugar here, but you can also keep this lemon cake refined sugar free by using coconut sugar! Just keep in mind that your cake might be tanner in color.
- Vegan butter: I recommend using vegan butter here over coconut oil, but the coconut flavor can be nice to the lemon and raspberry! Some people don’t like the taste of coconut though, so if you’re one of those people, stick with vegan butter! There are many great brands on the market that are also nut free, such as Flora Plant Butter.
- Applesauce: We go a bit more in depth in the next section, but the applesauce here represents are egg replacement and makes this an eggless lemon cake. Read on to see why I personally recommend using applesauce above most other egg replacements. I have used dairy free yogurt in this cake recipe, and it also works wonderfully!
- Vegan buttermilk: this is a combination of dairy free milk (of your choice- I recommend oat milk, but you can use soy milk, coconut milk, almond milk, or your favorite!) with a bit of apple cider vinegar.
- Fresh lemon juice & lemon zest: both lemon juice and lemon zest give this wonderfully flavorful cake it’s personality!
- Vanilla extract: to balance the powerful lemon!
What’s the egg replacement for this eggless lemon cake?
Yes, vegan cake baking means that all cake recipes are eggless, dairy free, and free from any animal products in general. However, if you’re not vegan and you’re just looking for an eggless lemon cake, you might be wondering what’s the egg replacement in this recipe!
For this vegan lemon cake, the applesauce or dairy free yogurt acts as the egg replacement. Applesauce is a wonderful vegan ingredient that adds both moisture and structure to a cake. I personally prefer it over flaxseed, mashed banana, or store bought egg replacement, as I’ve found it really is the best way to keep moisture in cake.
This is why I exclusively use applesauce in all of my vegan cake recipes and is one ingredient I highly recommend you don’t make a swap for! Trust me, you won’t regret it!
Overview: how to make a vegan lemon cake
As per all of my recipes, the full written instructions and measurements of ingredients for this vegan lemon cake recipe are found down below in the recipe card at the end of this post.
However, we’ll go over the basics here! Making this vegan cake is really not dissimilar to traditional baking, and certainly is not as intimidating as it seems (yes, even a layer cake!).
Here’s how you make this amazing vegan lemon cake:
- Cream together the vegan butter and sugar.
I use a stand mixer, but you can also use a large bowl and a hand mixer. Then add in the remaining wet ingredients, and mix again.
- Finish the batter:
Add in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Bake!
Pour the cake batter into your prepared cake pans, and bake. For the cake size, I made this into a three layer 6″ cake, but you can also use 8″ or 9″ cake pans.
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting:
This vegan cream cheese frosting is absolutely incredible. The slight tangy flavor complements the sweet vanilla and sour notes from the lemon cake perfectly.
I’ve also made this vegan lemon cake with my favorite raspberry frosting, and it’s absolutely wonderful as well!
I recommend using Violife vegan cream cheese or Miyoko’s vegan cream cheese. Those are my two favorites! Then you’ll use vegan butter, and powdered sugar, to create the frosting.
Recipe FAQ’s & Tips
I actually have a vegan lemon loaf cake recipe and a vegan coconut lemon loaf cake recipe that you’ll absolutely love. However, if you’d like to make this into a full sheet cake, you can keep the recipe as is.
For the sheet cake, you’ll also need to check the time as well- around 30 minutes.
You can definitely transform this raspberry lemon cake into vegan lemon cupcakes as well! I would cut the recipe in half, though, or else you’ll end up with about 24 cupcakes.
I’d also fill each cupcake with the raspberry jam, and pipe the vanilla vegan buttercream on top!
Yes! This doesn’t have to be a 6″ lemon cake. In fact, you can use an 8″ or even a 9″ cake pan. The 8″ cake pans will still give you a three layer cake, but you’ll have just two layers with the 9″ cake pans.
Keep in mind that the cakes will bake at different times, so be sure to check your oven.
Keep all leftovers stored in an airtight container or wrapped tightly. For how to store leftover cake:
Absolutely! You can use gluten-free 1:1 baking flour or gluten-free oat flour for this lemon cake. To give it more of a cake flour texture, sift in 1 tbsp of cornstarch or arrowroot.
Make sure all wet ingredients room temperature
Room temperature ingredients are crucial for a light and fluffy cake. As Sally’s Baking Addiction describes, room temperature ingredients help to trap air while baking, which helps with rising the cakes.
If your ingredients are at varying temperatures, you can split the vegan butter, and the texture will be completely off when baking. Make sure to give all of your ingredients enough time to come to room temperature before beginning.
Spoon and level the flour
This part is crucial, and if done incorrectly, almost always leads to a dense and gummy cake.
Make sure that you spoon and level your flour instead of scooping the measuring cup into the flour bag. Scooping the cup will give you way more flour than you actually need, leaving your cake being dry or gummy.
You can get closer to the general ball park of 127 grams per cup if you spoon and level.
Prepare your cake pans before you begin
Once the leavening agents are added into the batter, they start to work to rise the cake. If you haven’t prepared your cake pans before beginning the batter, you risk your lemon cake not properly rising.
Make sure that you’ve prepared your cake pans by oiling them and lining them with parchment paper for easy removal before you begin making the batter.
Watch how to decorate this vegan lemon cake here!
Check out how I decorate this vegan lemon cake on my Instagram page!
You’re going to absolutely love this easy vegan lemon cake! It’s perfect for Mother’s Day, Easter, or any spring get together. If you give it a go, let me know down below in the comments section, as well as giving it a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ so that others may find it.
As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there!
Happy cake baking!
More vegan cake recipes you’ll love:
Super moist vegan chocolate sheet cake
Vegan brownie cookie dough cake
Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!
If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!
Print
Vegan Lemon Cake with Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 23
- Total Time: 33 minutes
- Yield: 16 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This is the best vegan lemon cake you’ll ever have! Super tender, moist, easily gluten free, and layered with a dairy free vanilla cream cheese frosting, even non-vegans will love this sweet and moist eggless lemon cake!
Ingredients
- 3 1/4 cups (420 g) cake flour, all-purpose flour or gluten free 1-to-1 baking flour or oat flour, sifted (do NOT skip- add in 1 tbsp arrowroot powder if using all-purpose flour or gluten free 1-to-1 baking flour)
- 1 1/4 cup (240 g) granulated sugar or coconut sugar (see Note)
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 cup (200 mL) dairy free milk mixed with 1 tsp apple cider vinegar, room temperature
- 3/4 cup (190 g) unsweetened applesauce or dairy free yogurt, room temperature
- 1/2 cup (113 g) vegan butter, softened (stand mixer method) or melted (by hand method)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup lemon juice (juice from 3–4 lemons)
- 2 tbsp lemon zest
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 1 cup vegan butter, room temperature
- 1 cup vegan cream cheese, room temperature
- 3–4 cups powdered sugar
- 2–3 tbsp dairy free milk
Instructions
No equipment version:
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 350F and grease three 6″ cake pans with olive or coconut oil and line with parchment paper. Mix together the dairy free milk and apple cider vinegar and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
- Make the lemon cake batter: In a stand mixer with paddle attachment or large bowl with hand mixer, cream together the vegan butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Then add in the applesauce, vanilla extract, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Mix again until just combined. Then add in the dry ingredients and mix on medium-speed just until combined, adding in the vegan buttermilk in increments of 2.
- Bake:Divide the batter evenly into the cake pans. Place cake pans into the oven and bake for 23-26 minutes (for 6″) or until the toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a drying rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Make the vegan cream cheese frosting: When ready to frost the cakes, add vegan butter and vegan cream cheese to a large bowl or stand mixer and cream for 2-3 minutes. Add in 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time, continuing the beat the mixture until it’s a thick buttercream. Add in vanilla and 2-4 tablespoons of dairy free milk and continue to beat until desired texture.
- Assemble the cake: Frost the cake and top with lemon slices. Slice and enjoy!
Notes
Sugar: if using coconut sugar, your cake will come out tanner in color, but still taste delicious!
Gluten free: Use gluten free 1:1 baking flour or oat flour to create an entirely gluten free lemon cake.
Raspberry buttercream: If you’d prefer a raspberry frosting rather than cream cheese frosting, I recommend using my vegan raspberry frosting here.
Vegan buttermilk: allow the buttermilk mixture to sit for 5 minutes before using.
Keywords: vegan lemon cake, vegan lemon cake recipe, raspberry lemon cake, eggless lemon cake, vegan cake recipe, gluten free vegan cake
Hey! Do you have the ingredient list and amounts for the frosting? Thanks!
Hi there! Everything is listed in the recipe card 🙂 Right above the comments section here!
Hmm maybe it’s just not showing on mine? I see the ingredients for the actual cake, but not for the buttercream frosting (for that I only see the directions but no amounts for each ingredient)
I’m so sorry about that!! It ended up being a coding issue with my recipe card!! It should be fixed now!
I’ve made a lot of your recipes, they are amazing!!
Do you have any substitute for powdered sugar for the buttercream??
Aw thank you so much!! That’s so sweet! If you’re looking for a lower sugar option for the powdered sugar, I know that The Sugar Free Diva has an awesome sugar-free powdered sugar that you can make at home using cornstarch/arrworoot powder and stevia/monkruit/allulose etc! Here’s the post to that: https://thesugarfreediva.com/how-to-make-sugar-free-powdered-sugar/ If you just wanted to make your own powdered sugar at home, you can actually use granulated sugar and cornstarch, then blend it really finely! Essentially the same method as in SFD’s post. I hope that helps!
Thank you so much!
The recipe looks so fantastic! I do have a question though. You mentioned to sift in 1 tbsp of cornstarch if AP flour is being used when you wrote about the description of the recipe. But in the ingredient list, you said to not skip using the 1 tsp arrowroot or cornstarch for the AP flour. Is it 1 tbsp or 1 tsp? Thanks 😀
Oh I’m so sorry about that! That should have been tbsp! So sorry for the confusion! It’s been edited 🙂 Thank you for this note!
You said use applesauce but you don’t say how you make it. Would love to know how to make this egg substitute
Thank you
Hi there! I just use store bought! You can make your own though if you’d like!
Hi! I just use store bought! You can make your own though, if you’d prefer! You can also use mashed banana if you’d prefer. Just keep in mind it will have a slightly banana taste. Applesauce is a very neutral taste when baked in a cake.
Hi, just want to verify that 1 Tbsp of baking powder is correct please?
Hi Kat! Yes! If you’re concerned though, you can reduce it to 2 tsp instead- you won’t taste the baking powder though.
Thank you! Just wanted to make sure. 🙂
Absolutely!! I hope you love it!
Hey! Is there any way I can substitute the vegan butter and non dairy milk for normal milk and butter, because i cannot eat eggs only so i’m trying to find a recipie without eggs and not make it wholey vegan.
Yes, absolutely! You can use regular dairy butter and dairy milk here, and keep everything else the same!
I was wondering if you have a certain kind of baking pan that you like best? I am excited to try some of your cake recipes!
Hi Sharon! I’m so glad to hear that! I use Wilton cake pans- I find they’re the best for also helping the cakes not dome too much when they bake, but just rise! You can make this cake either with 6″ or 8″ cake pans!
I saw that I could use 8” cake pans but I didn’t see if there was a difference in bake time for 8” vs 6”? And would I do two 8” instead of three 6”?
Yes absolutely!! You can use two 8″ cake pans, and the baking time should be about 27-30 minutes, but be sure to check around 25 minutes to see where your cakes are in the process!
Could you provide gram measurements for your recipes ?
Yes! Working on this one 🙂 I’ve completely switched to gram measurements for all of my new recipes, but still provide US for those who use it- this one will be updated next week!
Hello,
I have a few substitution questions! Can I use oat flour for this recipe and add the arrowroot to it? (I have a rice allergy and can’t use most of the gluten free flour mixes). Also, as far as a sweetener, could I use either birch xylitol or maple syrup/honey?
Thanks,
Kristen
Hi Kristen! Yes, I’ve tried this cake with oat flour! For sweeteners, I’ve personally noticed cakes not rising AS WELL with sugar free sweeteners, even granulated. I wouldn’t recommend it but if you have a favorite granulated sugar free sweetener that you’ve found works, please feel free to use it!
Just started making this and have potentially spotted a MAJOR problem in the steps. The first step says to mix in the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder (which I did). Then the next step says to cream the vegan butter and sugar. But the sugar just went into the dry ingredients?? I’m sure it’ll turn out but now I’ll have to add more sugar to cream the butter with. I hope I’m wrong and just misread something but I really recommend this be edited…
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I’m so sorry for the confusion! When this post was updated, it didn’t fully reflect the changes, and I’m so sincerely sorry for that confusion! If you went ahead with the cake and omitted the sugar adding to the butter, the cake will still turn out- again I sincerely apologize for the confusion!
It all worked out in the end and it was delicious! I did end up adding a little more sugar to the butter and it was all good. I also made the icing and it could just be the brand of butter I used (Melt) but I think that and the cream cheese made it too liquidy so I added more icing sugar to make it thicker. Ended up making a lot of extra icing as a result, but all’s well that ends well as I’m going to make this cake again for a birthday tomorrow! Thanks for your reply 🙂
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I’m wondering if there’s an instructional that you used to make the decorative lemons on the outside of the cakes, they’re so cute!
Hi Holly! Yes, on my Instagram page! I’ve linked it in the post 🙂
The recipe sounds fantastic! I love the decoration with painted on lemons! Could you give some instructions as to how to add those please?
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Yes absolutely! I used the wilton Small Petal Cake Decorating Tip 101 and then the wilton leaf tip to create the green leaves! I just reserved some frosting from the cake to tint yellow using turmeric and green using moringa (you can also use matcha, but I wanted to use caffeine free!). Then you just pipe as many lemons as you’d like!
Brilliant, thank you! Would have never thought to use those ingredients as food colourings, genius!
Could you add fresh raspberries to the batter without it messing anything up?
Hi Lauren! Yes you can! Simply toss the raspberries in a light dusting of flour though- this ensures that they don’t all sink to the bottom of the pan, but instead stay distributed throughout the cake!
Hi Britt! I am playing around with a bunch of your cake recipes making a vegan wedding cake for my sister and they are fantastic! My questions is regarding the cake pans- I have one of each size and typically use a cake leveler to cut into 3 layers. Would it still work if I made the full recipe, put it in a 6 x 3 pan, put in the oven for the same or extended time, and cut using the leveler? Thanks so much!
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Hi Emily! Oh my gosh, I’m so honored!! Thank you so much 🙂 For your question, is this a 6″ round cake pan that’s 3″ high? You might need a bit taller, unless you also have cake tin strips to help the cake from doming too much- I just worry it might dome a lot, then you’d have to level it and not have as high of cake layers!
Trying recipe now for boyfriend’s birthday, thank you! I’m noticing that 3/4 cup milk is more like 177 mL, not 200. Do you think this difference in liquid makes any difference? I suppose I’ll find out! I’m multiplying by 25% to fit 9″ pans so getting extra into exact amounts to multiply.
Aw wonderful! That much of a difference won’t affect the cake at all! Please do let me know how you like it 🙂 Enjoy!
Your recipes never disappoint! This cake is heavenly. Sublime texture and plenty of lemony scrumptiousness! Raves all around. Thanks a million! (FWIW, I used vegan yogurt and cake flour.)
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This is so wonderful, wow thank you! And thank you for noting what you used!! Always so helpful for others! Enjoy 🙂
Made this for Easter and it was absolutely delicious! As an experienced vegan baker, this is one of the best cakes I’ve made! Wow! I did have to use a lot more sugar for the icing and it was still not stiff like buttercream….
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