This homemade vegan lemon cupcakes recipe is soft, light, fluffy, and bursting with delicious lemon flavor!
Homemade vegan lemon cupcakes
Want to know the BEST thing about these lemon cupcakes?
You might already have all of the ingredients on hand to make them, and there’s no need to buy any expensive specialty flours or sweeteners.
Plus, the vegan cupcakes can be made with no flax eggs!
You may also like this Healthy Banana Bread
Dairy free and plant based lemon cupcakes
The lemon cupcakes can be baked up the day before, are easy to transport, and don’t need any refrigeration.
So they are a great option for outdoor gatherings.
I made the recipe for a spring picnic to celebrate a friend’s birthday a few weeks ago, and they went over really well with the human guests.
(Three sneaky puppies in attendance all tried their best but were eventually thwarted from getting a cupcake.)
Above, watch the step-by-step lemon cupcake recipe video
Cupcake frosting options
Feel free to frost the cupcakes with your favorite homemade or store-bought white, vanilla, buttercream, or Vegan Cream Cheese frosting.
Or ice with melted Coconut Butter, powdered sugar glaze (1/2 cup powdered sugar mixed with 1 tbsp milk of choice), or Coconut Whipped Cream.
Keto vegan lemon cupcakes
Instead of the recipe below, use this recipe for Keto Muffins.
Add one teaspoon of lemon zest to the batter. Top with powdered monkfruit blend or sugar free frosting of choice.
Gluten free and vegan cupcakes
The recipe works with oat flour, and you can buy certified gluten free oat flour if you need to make sure the package you are buying has been made in a separate facility from products containing gluten.
I haven’t tried the cupcakes yet with a gluten free flour blend but have had success with Bob’s cup-for-cup blend in other recipes. So feel free to experiment with that one.
Vegan Lemon Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 tbsp oil, or applesauce or mashed banana for fat free
- zest of one lemon (important)
- 1 cup spelt, white, or oat flour (a keto option is mentioned above)
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup sugar, unrefined if desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a cupcake pan. Whisk first four ingredients and let sit at least ten minutes. You can stir together all remaining ingredients while you wait. Combine all ingredients to form a batter. Portion into the lined pan, only filling 2/3 of the way up because they'll rise. Bake 17 minutes on the center rack. Let cool. These are even sweeter the next day, and the liners peel off easily if they sit a day as well. View Nutrition Facts
Notes
Have you made this recipe?
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Pat Schwab says
About how many cupcakes does one batch make? Thanks
Chloe says
Above the ingredient list it says 6 – 7 cupcakes.
Mandy says
Hi Katie! The recipe made 6 pretty small cupcakes. I iced mine using 1/2 cup icing sugar and 3 tblspns lemon juice. Yummy! But I had a lot of trouble getting them out if the psper wrappers. They ended up being more like cupcake TOPS! I chose to use applesauce instead of oil. Could that have been my problem? And they didn’t rise much either. What have I done wrong?
Leona Daniels says
I was testing some lemon cupcake recipes to see which one was the best and this was the clear winner. Thank you for this amazing recipe!
Millie says
Whoa! Those cupcakes look like they’re store-bought! 🤤
christine says
So I made these and upon wooden skewer testing and overall look, they looked great. But when you touch them and take them apart, their consistency was like glue. Can’t eat glue-like cupcakes. Any clue of what i did wrong?
Kim says
I made these today for the 2nd time, and honesly they were so moist and decadent, truly beautiful. My work friends also loved them. They were gone in seconds.
Thanks for the amazing recipe
Katie H. says
I made these tonight and they turned out perfectly! So good! I used King Arthur GF flour and avacado oil. They were the perfect fit for the foods we have to avoid in our family– gluten, eggs, dairy, corn, nuts. I will definitely put this recipe in our favorites pile!
Lily says
LOVED this recipe! So moist and lemony. I used oat flour and olive oil, turned out fabulous. 10/10
Annaka says
I’m hoping to make this recipe as one of several for my wedding reception! I’m wondering if you think it would be okay to freeze the batter for a few days, thaw, and then bake? Obviously I’ll test it first, but thought I’d ask for any tips & tricks you might have!
CCK Media Team says
Hi, sorry we have honestly never frozen cupcake batter. We do know that the baked cupcakes, themselves, freeze well!
Carol Gibson says
Has anyone tried making this as a cake?