Italy is one of my favorite countries to visit: the beautiful coastlines, historical cities, charming villages and passionate people – and of course: the food!

Italian cuisine is one of the most vegan-friendly in Europe. Sure, they throw parmesan on top of everything, but often they just give you a bowl on the side where you add it yourself, and if not you can pretty much always ask them to omit it in your dish.

Italian cakes however have received very little attention (except for gelato), which is a shame because there are so many delicious treats to try out – like this vegan lemon cake with olive oil!

The traditional lemon and olive oil cake comes from southern Italy and includes eggs, but in this vegan version you can’t notice that there aren’t any eggs at all!

The cake has a lovely balanced flavor of lemon and is neither too sweet nor too tangy, and with just a hint of flavor from the olive oil. This is Italy in a nutshell, if you ask me ;).