Keep On Caking

Archive for February, 2011

I was “challenged” by my husband’s friend Andrea to make a vegan cake. I have to say the idea of making a cake without butter, eggs, sour cream or milk was extremely daunting. However, after a little research I found a recipe that seemed doable and also sounded tasty…so off I went on my vegan adventure. This recipe is a vegan variation of the White Almond Sour Cream cake I use as my go to cake recipe.

Vegan Vanilla Cake: This recipe is from Madchen on CakeCentral.com
1 cup soy butter (Earth Balance is best)
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup soy milk (or rice milk)
1/2 cup vegan sour cream (tofutti is vegan, look for non-hydrogenated)
9 tsp Ener-G egg replacer powder
12 Tbsp warm water.

Instructions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. The original recipe says 350 degrees but I bake everything at 325. Prepare pans, I used my homemade cake release (yes it’s vegan). In mixer, cream soy butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 7 – 8 min. In separate bowl, mix egg replacer and warm water. Beat until frothy. Add to butter/sugar mixture then beat in vanilla.
Mix flour with baking powder and salt in separate bowl.
Add the dry mixture to creamed mixture alternately with soy milk and “sour cream”. Begin and end with dry.
Spoon into pans. Bake for approx. 25 – 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
** Please don’t over mix the batter… which is very bad for vegan baking. **

This recipe made 2 6 inch layers plus 10 cupcakes.

When I made this cake, I had purchased the Silk French Vanilla Coffee creamer for making the buttercream so I replaced the soymilk with the Silk coffee creamer in the cake recipe. One pint was enough for the cake and the buttercream.  The French Vanilla coffee creamer made the cake a little extra sweet but I didn’t get any complaints:)

Where to find soy milk, soy butter, soy sour cream and egg replacement powder you may ask? I was at Kroger shopping for other stuff and in their “dairy” section they had a complete area dedicated to vegan and organic products. I was able to fine everything but the Egg Replacer. Andrea said her Kroger also carries the Egg Replacer powder but you have to look for it. It’s powder so it’s not in the dairy section. In my area, the Egg Replacer is available at Sprouts.  If you don’t have a Sprouts, check out Ener-G’s website. They have a product location finder.

I have to say I was pretty nervous about this cake. I was afraid it wouldn’t rise, it wouldn’t taste right, the texture would be off. I was so thrilled when the cake came out of the oven and it looked like all my other cakes. The only thing I did notice is the crust was just a little bit crispier. After giving it some thought, I think that the sugar content in the coffee creamer did change the crust just a bit but nothing to effect the final taste of the cake.

If I compare the traditional WASC to the Vegan Sour Cream Cake, I would say the textures are slightly different. The vegan cake was slightly more dense. This may be that it is vegan but it may also be that this is a cake from scratch. WASC is based on a doctored cake mix and as such the texture is very specific.

Frosting: I used my traditional buttercream recipe (thank you Sugar Shack)  but substituted the Silk Coffee Creamer instead of Coffee Mate:

For a single batch of buttercream:
2 1/2 cups of vegetable shortening (I use a hi-ratio shortening from my  local cake supply)
2 lbs of powedered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
7 tablespoons of hot Silk Coffee Creamer (you may not need all of it)

Combine the shortening, 2/3 of the coffee cream and the vanilla in a mixer. Start slow or it will splatter, slowly add in the powdered sugar. If the buttercream is too thick, add the left over coffee creamer until you reach the consistency you need. Frost your cake.

Since this cake was a “Just Because” cake I didn’t have any specific design in mind. Since neither fondant or gelatin are vegan, I needed to use just buttercream for the decorations. So I went for girly, bright colored polka dots. With the left over cupcakes I decided to play with different tips using the left over colored buttercream. The pink cupcake is a 1M tip, the teal cupcake is using tip 104 to make a carnation style flower, and the purple cake is drop flowers using tip 107. The cake was a hit with Andrea (vegan) and her non-vegan friends and family.

Now that I know the base recipe is a winner, next on the vegan experiment list is CHOCOLATE CAKE!