Vegan Lemon Pound Cake (Or Vanilla!)

Vegan lemon pound cake - this delicious lemon loaf cake is soft, moist and lemony with the classic dense, melt-in-the-mouth texture of a perfect pound cake. You can also use this recipe to make a vegan vanilla pound cake if you prefer!

This vegan lemon pound cake is one of my favourite cake recipe creations to date. It is perfectly moist and soft, dense but not claggy, has a wonderfully tender crumb and a delicate lemon flavour.

It is one of those beautifully simple cakes that is delicious eaten just as it is for a snack; or dressed up with fruit compote and cream or ice cream for a classy dessert.

I adapted it from my (very!) old non-vegan pound cake recipe and I am happy to say that this vegan version is just as good as I remember it being!

What Is Pound Cake?:

Pound cake is a dense, moist cake with a tight, soft crumb; very different to a light and fluffy sponge cake! It is generally baked in either a loaf or bundt tin.

Traditionally it was made with a pound each of flour, sugar, butter and eggs, hence the name. Since it's invention in the 1700's, pound cake recipes have evolved a bit to make it a little lighter, less dry and more flavourful, and many countries have their own version.

For this vegan pound cake, I swapped the eggs for silken tofu. That might seem like a weird ingredient to add to cake but trust me it really works!

It's not an ingredient I would use as an egg replacement in most cake recipes, but here we want a soft, dense, melt-in-the-mouth texture and silken tofu does the job perfectly. Don't worry, you can't taste it at all.

How To Make Vegan Lemon Pound Cake:

(For ingredients and full instructions see the recipe card below)

Start by sifting togther the dry ingredients - self-raising flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Set them aside.

Place the wet ingredients in a blender - silken tofu, non-dairy milk, lemon juice, oil, lemon zest and vanilla extract and blend until completely smooth. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together softened vegan block butter and caster sugar with an electric mixer until well combined.

Add half of the wet ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture and whisk until smooth; the mixture will look a bit split but that's ok.

Add half of the dry ingredients and whisk to combine then whisk in the rest of the wet followed by the rest of the dry. Once you have added all of the flour be careful not to over-beat the batter as that can make the cake tough. Just whisk it until it is smooth then stop.

Pour the batter into a greased and lined loaf tin and spread it level. Bake the cake for 50-60 minutes until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. The cake will be flat rather than domed on top.

Leave it to cool in the tin for ten minutes then carefully turn it out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

To make the glaze simply stir enough lemon juice into your sifted icing sugar to create a thick but pourable consistency then drizzle it over the top of your cooled cake.

Top Tips:

1.For the best results make sure that you follow the recipe closely. As always, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients using the gram measurements (with a digital scale), rather than the cup conversions. Cup measurements are simply not accurate enough for baking and I cannot guarantee the best results if you use them.

2. For the best textured cake it is important to use a vegan block butter/margarine to make this cake – the kind that comes in a foil wrapped block, NOT the spreadable kind in a tub which has too high a water content for baking. I use Naturli Vegan Block but Stork, Vitalite or Tormor blocks are also fine (not the tub versions).

3. You need to use firm silken tofu, which is the shelf-stable kind, not the fridge kind. In the UK it can usually be found either in the ‘Asian’ section of the supermarket (by the soy sauce), or next to the tinned beans.

4. All of your ingredients should be at room temperature, so make sure to take the butter and milk out of the fridge a couple of hours before baking.

5. Make sure that you don't over-beat the batter once you have added the flour as that can make the cake tough.

How To Make Vegan Vanilla Pound Cake:

It's really easy to adapt this vegan lemon pound cake recipe into a vanilla pound cake one. Simply omit the lemon zest and add an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.

DO NOT omit the lemon juice, the recipe needs that to work. Don't worry, it's not enough to make the cake taste of lemon, most of the lemon flavour comes from the zest.

For the glaze simply swap the lemon juice for the milk of your choice, about 1 ½ - 2 Tbsp; enough to make a thick but pourable glaze; and add ½ a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

How To Make Candied Lemon Slices:

The candied lemon slices are totally unecessary, but they are a nice way to decorate the cake and are very easy to make.

To make them, place 150g granulated sugar in a medium-small saucepan with 200ml water. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Thinly slice 1-2 lemons and lay the slices in a single layer in the syrup. Bring the pan up to a gentle simmer and cook for about 30-45 minutes until soft and almost translucent, flipping the slices over halfway through.

Lay the slices out on a sheet of baking parchment and leave to dry for an hour or two before using. Ideally you shouldn't place them on the cake until shortly before serving.

More Vegan Loaf Cakes:

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