Thursday, October 6, 2011

My Lemony Birthday Cake

Lemony Birthday Cake

On my last birthday, I made myself a lemon cake with lemon butter cream icing.  At the time, I didn't post the recipe because I thought it needed a little work.  I am not an expert baker and the cake was fairly dense.  It's more of a homey-style kind of cake instead of the lightness you might associate with a traditional lemon sponge cake but the delicious icing made everything right.  It still could use some work but in honor of Vegan Mofo, I'm going to post it as is and hope that it's good enough.

My daughter decorated the top with raspberries for me! 

Lee’s Lemony Birthday Cake

4 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
2 cups unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon extract
2/3 cup oil (I used coconut oil and canola oil)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease 2 nine inch round baking pans.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.   Combine soy milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla and oil.  Add wet ingredients with the dry, combining until well mixed.   Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

½ cup Earth Balance
3 cups icing sugar
1/3 to 1/2 cup lemon juice (one lemon)
1 tsp vanilla

Cream Earth Balance with electric beater until soft, add in icing sugar 1 cup at at time.  Add the lemon juice and vanilla before the last cup of icing sugar and beat until fluffy.  

Actually, this amount of icing just barely covered my cake so you might want to make a little more icing.  

13 comments:

  1. I love lemon cake, and fabulous (and tasty!) decoration on this one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love lemon cake & the fresh raspberries must've been delicious with it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you! The raspberries were lovely but I was really captivated by the icing and I'm not usually a big frosting fan.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're weird Lee. Frosting is one of the best foods on earth. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, I know I'm weird. I usually scrape most of the frosting off the cake if it's super goopy. But this is probably the yummiest icing I've ever made.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mmm! That looks super amazing. I'm trying to decide which cake to make for my birthday. Do you think this one??? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh Kathryn, I don't think this cake is good enough. What a terrible thing to say about my own recipe but I was just fooling around with it. Maybe you could cut the recipe in half and test if you like it first?

    I would feel terrible if you made it for your birthday it disappointed you!

    ReplyDelete
  8. That's such a beautiful cake. Love the decorating. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Happy birthday! I love lemon desserts. This cake looks like a winner to me!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks ladies! I love lemon desserts too and my daughter sure had fun decorating.

    ReplyDelete
  11. You are too modest, Lee! ;-) I am sure this one is delicious; I am used to dense cakes. But perhaps I can find a different cake recipe and then use this icing which you loved so much :-) Or just try this another time; I am kind of partial to chocolate cakes for my birthday. Any suggestions???

    ReplyDelete
  12. M's favourite chocolate cake is the one from the Joy of Vegan Baking. I don't know if you've tried that one yet? It's super easy. I can give you the recipe if you want it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, yes, please! I would love the recipe. I don't have that cookbook. Thank you so much, Lee :-)

    ReplyDelete