Vegan Lemon Courgette Cake
A lovely allotment-style cake for when the courgettes start coming thick and fast. The grated courgette keeps the sponge moist, while lemon makes it bright and fresh rather than heavy.
Ingredients
For the cake
- 250g grated courgette
- 250g self-raising flour
- 150g caster sugar or light brown sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Zest of 2 lemons
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 100ml neutral oil, such as sunflower or rapeseed
- 120ml plant milk, such as oat or soya
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
For the lemon icing
- 150g icing sugar
- 2–3 tbsp lemon juice
- Extra lemon zest, optional
Method
- Prepare the courgette
Grate the courgette, then gently squeeze out some of the excess liquid with your hands or in a clean tea towel. You do not need to make it bone dry — a bit of moisture is the point. - Heat the oven
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / Gas 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin, or use a round 20cm cake tin. - Mix the dry ingredients
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. - Mix the wet ingredients
In another bowl or jug, mix the oil, plant milk, lemon juice and vanilla. - Combine
Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently. Fold in the grated courgette. Do not overmix — just bring it together into a thick batter. - Bake
Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for 45–55 minutes, until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. - Cool
Leave in the tin for 10–15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. - Ice
Mix the icing sugar with lemon juice until smooth and pourable. Spoon over the cooled cake and scatter with a little lemon zest if you like.
Notes
This cake is best once fully cooled, and even better after a few hours when the lemon has settled into the sponge. It should keep for 3–4 days in an airtight tin.
For a more allotmenty version, you could add a handful of chopped walnuts, poppy seeds, or even a little grated apple alongside the courgette.
I make it with some chopped crystallized ginger
Perfect — crystallised ginger is a great addition. It turns it from a simple lemon courgette cake into something a bit more special: moist, sharp, sweet, and gently warming.
Add:
75–100g chopped crystallised ginger
Fold it in at the same time as the grated courgette.
I’d tweak the recipe slightly like this:
Vegan Lemon, Courgette & Ginger Cake
Use the same recipe, but add:
- 75g chopped crystallised ginger for a gentle ginger note
- 100g chopped crystallised ginger if you want it more noticeable
- Optional: ½ tsp ground ginger in the flour for a warmer sponge
Because crystallised ginger is already sweet, I’d keep the sugar closer to 125–150g, depending how sweet you like cake.
For the icing, lemon still works beautifully. You could also scatter a few tiny pieces of crystallised ginger on top, though I’d keep it fairly restrained so it does not become too sugary.
A nice line for the post would be:
The chopped crystallised ginger is not essential, but it gives little warm, sweet bursts through the lemony sponge — the sort of thing that makes a courgette cake feel much more deliberate than merely “using up a courgette”.
Absolutely — the lemon zester earns its place in Tools & Tips.
You could add this little section to the cake post:
Essential tool: the lemon zester
This is one of those small kitchen tools that seems unnecessary until you own one — and then suddenly it becomes essential.
For this cake, the lemon zest is doing a lot of the work. The juice adds sharpness, but the zest brings the real lemon flavour: fragrant, bright and slightly floral. A proper zester or fine grater lets you take off just the yellow outer skin without digging into the bitter white pith underneath.
It is especially useful for:
- lemon cakes and icings
- marinades and dressings
- herb sauces
- risottos and pasta
- adding a final lift to roasted vegetables
In Plot to Pot terms, it is a perfect little bridge between growing and cooking. A courgette from the plot, a lemon from the fruit bowl, and one small tool that makes the whole thing sing.
And a nice caption could be:
One of those tiny kitchen tools that makes a surprisingly big difference — especially when lemon is meant to be the star rather than just a background note.
Yes i will add that… the tools and tip section need some work on stillThought for a couple of seconds
Yes — that sounds like a good direction. The Tools & Tips section could become one of the really useful parts of From Plot to Pot, especially if it stays practical and personal rather than feeling like a product list.
For this post, you could add a simple internal link or note like:
This is also a good excuse to mention one of my favourite small kitchen tools: the lemon zester. I’ll be adding more of these little plot-to-pot essentials to the Tools & Tips section as the site grows.
Longer version:
The lemon zester is exactly the sort of thing I want to include more of in the Tools & Tips section — small, practical bits of kit that earn their place because they actually get used. Not gadgets for the sake of gadgets, but the sort of tools that make cooking from the plot easier, brighter or just a bit more satisfying.
That section could eventually include things like:
- lemon zester / fine grater
- decent vegetable peeler
- salad spinner
- preserving jars
- kitchen scales
- compost scoop / hand fork
- seed trays and modules
- netting, fleece and plant supports
A nice strapline for the section might be:
Tools & Tips
Useful things for growing, harvesting, cooking and not making life harder than it needs to be.
Stay calm, drink tea, eat cake….yummThought for a couple of seconds
That looks exactly like a proper allotment kitchen cake — slightly rustic, moist, lemony, crumbly in the best way, and already being “tested” before it has properly cooled.
That line is perfect for the post:
Stay calm, drink tea, eat cake.
You could add it near the end like this:
The verdict
This is not a dry, worthy “vegan alternative” cake. It is soft, lemony, properly moist from the courgette, richer from the ground almonds, and lifted by those little pieces of crystallised ginger.
Best served with a mug of tea and no unnecessary fuss.
Stay calm, drink tea, eat cake.
Suggested image caption
Vegan lemon, courgette, almond and crystallised ginger cake — tested immediately, for quality-control purposes.
Or slightly more bloggy:
A proper plot-to-pot cake: courgette for moisture, lemon for brightness, almonds for richness, and crystallised ginger for little warm bursts of sweetness.