Lemon and Olive Oil Drizzle Cake

When you're sailing through the Mediterranean, and take a trip inland, you will have probably found yourself surrounded by endless olive trees, it’s impossible not to be inspired. That’s exactly how I felt when I lived in Andalusia so after writing about olive oil as this month's Superfood for Sailors (you can read it here). It got me thinking about all the wonderful ways I have been using it it in the kitchen—especially for baking.

One of my absolute favourite things to make is a lemon and olive oil cake. Not only is it light, fluffy, and full of zesty goodness, but baking with olive oil is also much healthier than using butter or margarine. It’s packed with healthy fats and makes cakes wonderfully moist without being too heavy. Plus, olive oil keeps cakes fresher for longer—perfect when you’re on a boat and your prepping for passage. Though we are pretty convinced here at Small Vegan Kitchen that this Lemon and Olive Oil Drizzle cake tastes so good you will eat it before it has a chance to get stale or even photographed as in the case of the cake I made for the photograph of this blog.

If you are sailing in places that lemons are hard to come by you can sub the recipe with fresh limes. If you only have store bought lemon or lime juice you can also use it too!

Here is the recipe

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups plain flour

• 3/4 cup of sugar (I use unrefined sugars such as coconut sugar)

• 3 tsp baking powder

• pinch of salt

• 1 cup soy milk (or other plant milk)

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 1/3 cup lemon juice

• 2 tbsp lemon zest

• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/360F

2. line a baking tin or loaf tin with grease-proof paper.

3. Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl.

4. In a separate bowl mix together the wet ingredients.

5. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet until all is incorporated.

6. Pour into the baking tin and cook for 25 to 30 minutes.

7. You can insert a toothpick to see if the cake is ready. If it comes out clean then you can remove the cake from the oven.

8. Leave to cool on a wire rack before pouring on the drizzle.

For the drizzle

Put 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar with 2 tbsp of lemon juice and 1/2 tsp vanilla essence. mix to combine then pour over the cake.

Optional

You can decorate with seeds. I like to use pumpkin seeds and black sesame seeds.

If you liked this recipe, and love olive oil then why not check out our other recipe Anything Goes Pesto using this amazing Superfood for Sailors.

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