I love anything with lemon, the sweet after taste of the lemon flavour in a cake makes everything in the world seem right.

When my mother first decided to become a vegetarian, I thought I would have to give up making Sunday afternoon cakes for tea time.

Reading about all these egg substitutes can make ones head go upside,  but I have discovered that simple flax seed crushed and mixed with boiling water can be used as an egg. Simple and easy.

Along this journey I have comes across vegan baking and let me just tell you, the options to vegan baking are limitless. I was a bit worried when I ventured into vegan baking. Ingredients such as apple cider vinegar, soy milk, almond milk, rice milk soo many milks and yet none of them actually come from an animal. I love baking with soy milk it makes everything soo much more creamier and tastier.

All my cakes that I make are vegan friendly although I am not a vegan, I still eat eggs and meat, but when it comes to cake I only make vegan.

If you have never tried a vegan cake before, then you are missing out on a lot of things. Vegan cakes taste just like normal cakes expect that they are much lighter on the tummy and there is not sugar rush after taste.

I came across this recipe on the Loving It Vegan blog.

Everyone loved this cake and it was super moist and soft. With just the right amount of lemon in the icing and the cake. Nothing too lemony.

Ingredients for the batter:

• 2 ½ x cups + 2 x tbsp. cake flour.
• 1 ½ x cups castor sugar.
• 1 ½ x tsp bicarbonate of soda.
• ¾ x tsp salt.
• 1 ½ x cup soy milk.
• ½ x cup oil.
• 1 x tbsp. apple cider vinegar.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• 3 x tsp lemon essence.
• 2 x tbsp. lemon zest.

Ingredients for the icing:

• 4 ½ x cups icing sugar.
• 112g x butter.
• 3 ½ x tsp lemon juice.
• 2 x tsp lemon essence.
• 1 x tbsp. soy milk.

Method for the batter.

• In a bowl, sieve together the cake flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda.
• In another bowl, whisk together the soy milk, oil, vinegar, vanilla essence, lemon essence and lemon zest, till all the sugar has been dissolved.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk till everything is well combined.
• Pour into 2  greased 20cm cake tin.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 30 – 40 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes in the tins before turning out onto the cooling racks to cool completely.

Method for the icing:

• Cream butter till light and fluffy.
• Add in the icing sugar and milk and beat till well combined.
• Add in the lemon juice and lemon essence and beat till mixed.

To assemble this cake, sandwich the two layers between a layer of lemon icing. Ice the top of the cake and pop into the fridge to chill for 10 minutes.