Dairy-Free Lemon Cake Recipe

This cake is a rich, tangy, sweet treat that is absolutely phenomenal with a light, dairy-free icing​ of your choice or simply with a dusting of powdered sugar. 

Swapping butter for olive oil when baking a cake is a good idea for two reasons. People who are lactose-intolerant cannot have butter because it contains small amounts of the protein casein and butter can trigger a negative reaction. Butter is high saturated fat whereas olive oil contains mostly unsaturated fat. 

To make an even stronger case for using olive oil instead of butter, a cake does not need butter to be moist—olive oil works just as well or even better. This recipe can be made with any type of olive oil, as long as it’s pure olive oil. The choice of olive oil is up to you. Your standard everyday cooking olive oil has a neutral flavor, it’s the safest bet and also the more economical. If you use extra-virgin olive oil, one that is more fruity than peppery works best for this cake. To kick up the lemon flavor of the cake, you can also use store-bought lemon olive oil, or make your own lemon-infused olive oil. 

And if that’s still not enough lemon flavor for you, you can also add lemon juice or lemon extract to the dairy-free icing. For the icing, you can keep it simple and cover the entire cake with the it. Or, for a two-layer dessert cake, cut the cake in half horizontally and fill it with some of the icing, then spread the rest on the sides and on top.