The first-ever vegan baker on The Great British Bake Off, Freya Cox shares her favourite free-from bakes each month. This issue, we begin with a deliciously simple lemon loaf cake. “Make my beautifully moist lemon sponge, filled with juicy blueberries and topped with a crunchy lemon drizzle. It’s super quick to make, there’s minimal washing up and it’s perfectly delicious!”
Lemon & blueberry drizzle cake
For the cake
170ml soya milk 50ml lemon juice 300g plain flour 2tsp baking powder 50g ground almonds 230g caster sugar ¼tsp salt Grated zest of 3 lemons 80g vegan plain yoghurt 1tsp vanilla extract 120ml vegetable oil 150g blueberries 1tsp flour, for the berries
For the drizzle
Juice of 2 lemons 50g caster sugar
For the icing
120g icing sugar (plus extra, if needed) Juice of 1 lemon
1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6. Line a 2lb loaf tin with either a loaf tin liner or parchment paper.
2 Pour the soya milk and lemon juice into a jug, mix well, then leave to curdle for around 5 minutes. Add the flour, baking powder, ground almonds, sugar, salt and lemon zest to a large mixing bowl, then use a balloon whisk to combine.
3 Once the soya milk has curdled, add the yoghurt, vanilla and oil to the same jug and whisk. Pour this wet mixture into the dry ingredients, then whisk until a smooth batter is formed.
4 Toss the blueberries in a teaspoon of plain flour to stop them from sinking to the bottom of the cake. Add the blueberries to the batter, folding gently to avoid them breaking up.
5 Pour the batter into the loaf tin, then place in the oven for 55-60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Once baked, remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack, still in the tin, to cool slightly.
6 For the drizzle, put the lemon juice and sugar into a pan over a low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl to cool slightly.
7 While the cake is still warm in the tin, use a skewer to poke holes all over the top, poking the whole way through. Pour over the drizzle, making sure the whole of the surface is covered.
8 Once the tin is cool enough to touch, remove the cake from the tin to cool completely. Meanwhile, make the icing. Put the icing sugar and lemon juice into a bowl, mixing well until smooth. Add slightly more icing sugar if the icing is too runny; it wants to be thick, but still pourable.
9 Once the cake is cool, pour over the icing and leave to set. Enjoy!
Tip You can use either fresh or frozen blueberries, or swap them for a different fruit; raspberries would be tast
