Making A Vegan Cake: Tips

Making a cake for a vegan sounds like a daunting task and possibly not be very rewarding one. No eggs, no butter, and no milk, how can that be a cake. But the secret is to stop thinking of it as a series of prohibitions and think of it as an opportunity to be creative.

Your vegan cake may be the best one you have ever made if you think outside the box. You are not making a substitute for a traditional cake. You are making a vegan cake. This is a cake in its own right.

A vegan cake might be a stack of pancakes made with buckwheat flour and layered with cashew cream and fresh strawberries. Cashew cream is made by grinding cashew nuts with a small quantity of water in a food processor.

Many fruit cakes do not require eggs because they are not intended to rise very high like a sponge cake. When decorated with icing they will be indistinguishable from any other fruit cake. Obviously you must use vegetable margarine.

A brownie type cake can be made without egg using only baking powder to make it rise. It will not have the height of a traditional sponge cake. But once it is cool you can assemble it into a taller and more impressive creation.

A cake of this kind can be made with good quality vegetable oil rather than margarine. This has definite health benefits.

For preference use whole meal flour in your vegan cake. You can also cut down on sugar or eliminate it altogether by using applesauce or grated carrot to sweeten it. This will make your vegan cake a much healthier option.

Sometimes you will have just have to make a birthday cake. In this case you will have to resort to an egg substitute. There is no other way to get the effect of a sponge that rises and stays risen when baked. The protein in the egg sets in the process of baking. Your local health food store will be able to provide you with a product known as Ener-G Egg Replacer. This will do the job and allow you to produce a vegan cake that is indistinguishable from a the "real thing."