This eggless lemon cake recipe is very special. It is an old recipe that I had posted on my blog when it was hosted on blogspot. When I moved to word press, I lost that recipe somewhere and it never made it to the new website. A lot of you who had made the the eggless lemon cake asked for the recipe again but the sad truth was that I had never written down the recipe anywhere besides the blog. I thought the recipe was lost forever.
Last month, when I was in Dubai, I met a few of my readers for dinner. One of them happened to mention that the eggless lemon cake recipe from my blog is her favorite and how she has it written down in her diary because she makes it so often. That is how I found this recipe back and that is what makes it so special. I’m so glad I’m able to share it here again for those who’ve made it earlier and liked it and also for those who’d want to give it a shot.
While I love this lemon cake for how special the recipe is to me, you have several other reasons to try it. This eggless lemon cake is-
- flavorful
- light
- soft
- easy to make
- delicious
Ingredients for eggless lemon cake
The lemon cake is flavored using both lemon zest and lemon juice. To zest your lemon, use a micro-plane zester or a small grater. While zesting, make sure you are only getting the yellow skin of the lemon and not the inner white skin, which is bitter. Always remember to freshly zest your lemon right before you need it for the cake. Don’t keep the rest resting. I also recommend using freshly squeezed lemon juice for the cake. Besides that, all ingredients for the recipe are simple and basic. All-purpose flour is regular maida. Castor sugar is superfine sugar. Please don’t use granulated sugar if you can get your hands on castor sugar.
How to make lemon cake eggless
The egg substitute here is Greek yogurt. I like using Greek yogurt instead of regular curd because homemade curd is usually very watery. If you don’t have Greek yogurt, you can use market bought curd or hung curd. Just get rid of all the extra water and use only thick curd for this recipe. A lot of eggless lemon sponge cake recipes call for condensed milk but I don’t prefer using that as it makes the cakes very sweet.
Tip to bake lemon cake in microwave
Do you want to bake an eggless lemon cake recipe in microwave? All you have to do while baking this cake in the microwave is to reduce the baking time by 25%. So in the microwave, this will only take 22-25 minutes at 180*C. Everything else remains the same.
You can eat this cake as it is or layer it with frosting. You can either use a vanilla bean buttercream frosting or cream-cheese frosting. If you bake this eggless lemon cake at home, don’t forget to share pictures with me by using #BAKEWITHSHIVESH. Happy Baking!
- 1 +1/2 cup (180g) all purpose flour (maida)
- ½ teaspoon (3g) baking soda
- 1 teaspoon (4g) baking powder
- 1 tablespoon (6g) lemon zest
- ¾ cup (180mL) vegetable oil
- 1 + ½ cup (300g) castor sugar
- 1 cup (285g) Greek yogurt
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoon (75mL) lemon juice
- ½ cup (120mL) milk + 1 tsp white vinegar, rested for 5 minutes
- Pre-heat the oven to 180*C. Line a 9" cake pan with parchment paper
- In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and lemon zest
- In a separate bowl, beat vegetable oil and sugar.
- Beat in the Greek yogurt, vanilla extract and lemon juice.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in three batches, alternating with milk. Use a spatula to fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Do not over mix.
- Transfer the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake at 180*C for 35-40 minutes.
Hello. I'm Shivesh Bhatia, a food blogger and food stylist from Delhi, India. Welcome to Bake With Shivesh, where I'll help you create magic in your kitchens with my simple recipes.
Wow, i had been waiting for a proper lemon cake recipe, will try it tomorrow
YAY
Can I use this recipe with a 7 inch round pan? Thanks.
Also using bio coconut oil instead of vegetable oil?
you can try
sure!
Is it ok to replace the white vinegar with apple cider vinegar?
you can give it a shot
Tried lemon cake for the first time… Your recipe is amazing… Everybody loves it….
Thank you so much and keep sharing more eggless recipes ?
YAYY! so happy to hear that. Thanks a lot 😀
Hey Shivesh, tried this lemon cake as well for the office potluck.. And it was a HIT!!
Blooper- I got the Epigamia Natural Greek Yogurt.,and I accidently added the blueberry Greek Yogurt but it tasted YUM…;)
haha that is great news! So glad you liked it. Keep baking 😀
How can I convert this to a lemon coconut cake with coconut milk
or maybe just add some shredded coconut to the batter
Hi dear,
For the very first time I m going to try your recepie and I HV a doubt” it works if I use butter instead of oil”
Hi! I recommend sticking to vegetable oil for this recipe because it is eggless. If it is an egg recipe, you can use equal quantity of butter
In what size cake should the batter be transferred to?
Cake tin*
Is Greek yoghurt necessary? Can it be replaced by regular yoghurt or home-made curd?
Greek yogurt is thick and regular curd is too watery. You can try using hung curd
If I don’t want to use oven..Is there any alternative for that? Can I try it on steamer? If yes..How much time will it take to bake?
Hi! i haven’t tried doing that but you can give it a shot. Let me know how it turns out
Hi Shivesh
I tried half quantity of the recipe ,but with orange zest and juice instead of lemon.
And reduced the sugar to 90 gma ( instead of 150 gms ) as we do not eat too sweet at home, and I will be layering the same.
The cake turned out delicious and moist, but a bit delicate and sticky..any reason you can advise why this would happen, as I want to use this sponge base for a layer cake, and am afraid it may break.
Also when compared this recipe to your eggless chocolate sponge, the rest of the ingredients are the same, but there, there ,is 75 gms of cocoa as well…whereas here it’s only 180 gma flour..is there,usually, that much of a difference of between a vanilla and chocolate sponge flour ratio?
Pls advise.
Hey Shivesh! I love your recipes! And love the new kitchen!!
I just have one query, I tried the eggless lemon cake recipe with vanilla buttercream. It tastes great but I think it didn’t rise as much. Feels a bit dense. I baked in my microwave but on the convection mode. At 175° for 40 mins. Could that have been the problem?
Hi Saanya
Thank you so much. It could be because of over mixing of dry and wet ingredients- that knocks out all the air and results in a dens cake 🙁
This recipe is amazing! I tried it out today…everyone loved it ❤️
Hey Shivesh, can I substitute the sugar in this recipe (or any of your other eggless recipes) with Maple syrup?? I have pure maple syrup from Canada just lying around and I somehow want to use it before it expires! (it’s not every day that I bake sweet stuff at home)
Wow…. Great, thank you to mentioning microwave method; I was really searching for. Thank you!
so glad I could help
For both flour and sugar measures , you write 1+1/2 cup. Is it the same as 1.5 cups or does it indicate anything else ?Also if I want to bake the same recipe with whole wheat flour instead of refined flour , how should the baking powder & baking soda measures be changed?
1 + 1/2 and 1.5 is the same. I would not recommend using whole wheat flour here since it’s an eggless recipe. The cake would become too dense
Milk and vinegar combined have to be rested for 5 minutes???
Yes, it makes a 5-minute buttermilk. It is a very common ingredient used in vegan cakes as they improve the cake’s texture and might also help it rise. 🙂
Hey shivesh. I tried this recipe just yesterday and Omg it turned out amazing, im very new to baking and very few eggless cakes turn out this good. It was fluffy light and raised properly.
My question is that it was a big cake for one person, since i reside alone. Can you suggest how much quantity should i use so that it comes out half the size and i can enjoy it better.
Hey shivesh. I tried this recipe just yesterday and Omg it turned out amazing, im very new to baking and very few eggless cakes turn out this good. It was fluffy light and raised properly. Totally delish.
My question is that it was a big cake for one person, since i reside alone. Can you suggest how much quantity should i use so that it comes out half the size and i can enjoy it better.
Hi Shivesh,
My cake sank rose well as it was baking. But towards the end of baking, it sunk in the middle and turned out to be a dense mass like a pudding. Although it tasted awesome, it was not a cake, more like halwa. What could be the reason? I did everything in the same proportion as mentioned.
You probably opened it buring baking time, overmixed or didn’t let it cool for a few minutes. This has happened to me before and its normally because of these reasons
I have just made this cake. It’s was very easy to make and came out very moist. One twist I did was to brush the cake with a lemon syrup made of lemon juice and icing sugar before adding frosting on top.
I will definitely make this cake again.
We loved this!! So glad you got your recipe back😊
Hi, thanks for this lovely recipe! I added in walnuts because why not and it was delicious.
Hi Shivesh,
I am going to ke this cake for my daughter’s birthday, day after tomorrow. just need to know a good frosting recipe you can advise for this flavour ( i am sure ur frosting recipe wud be equally easy as ur cake recipes are); as its a complete lock down here in my city, i dont find many dairy products so easily these days. although i have non dairy whipping cream lying in my freezer.
Pls help.
Raagini
Hi Shivesh I just love your recipes, tried out fluffy vanilla cake & it was very good,I particularly happy about the precise measurements, but can you give a recipe for lemon Bundt cake with eggs?
This was overly sweet for me and my family. How can I tweak this recipe and make it less sweeter?
I am very excited to try this recipe. But I have 2 doubts :
1. Can I reduce lemon juice quantity to 2-3 tbsp instead of 5 as you have mentioned??
2. Can I add fresh blueberries in the batter in this recipe?
Please please please reply…. As I want to bake it for my husband’s birthday that is tomorrow 😛
Hey, just one more question – in the video of this recipe you have added 1/2 cup of milk but in here you have mentioned 1/2 cup of buttermilk (milk + vinegar)
Which one should I use??
Hey, just one more question – in the video of this recipe you have added 1/2 cup of milk but in here you have mentioned 1/2 cup of buttermilk (milk + vinegar)
Which one should I use??
buttermilk. It’s better for the cake.