A vegan diet is a diet that does not include any animal products, namely meat, poultry, fish and dairy. While it may seem quite difficult to make any kind of cake without any dairy products, especially key ingredients such as milk, eggs, and butter, there are a number of recipes for vegan cake that yield delicious baked goods. There are dozens of vegan recipes for all kinds of cakes including chocolate cake, carrot cake, bundt cake, spice cake, and more.
There are three main ingredients in most cake recipes that cannot be consumed as part of a vegan diet. One of these ingredients is milk. Cake recipes that call for milk can be translated into vegan recipes by substituting cow's milk for soy milk or rice milk. Soy milk, which is often thicker than rice milk, may yield a richer flavor.
Another common ingredient that cannot be used in vegan cake recipes is butter. Butter can simply be replaced by margarine. It is important to note that some margarines do have trace amounts of animal products in them. There are, however, companies that manufacture completely dairy-free vegan margarine. While making a vegan cake, it is important to make sure that the margarine is from one of these companies.
The final common animal ingredient is egg. This may be the most difficult ingredient to substitute. Eggs can be substituted with a product called egg replacer. There are a few companies that manufacture egg replacer and it can be found in some grocery stores and most health food stores. Egg replacer is a powder that comes with specific instructions about how much to use per replaced egg.
By using soy milk or rice milk, vegan margarine, and egg replacer, almost any cake recipe can be translated into a vegan cake recipe. If the recipe calls for frosting, using the same substitutions should yield a good result. While a cake made entirely with vegan ingredients might not taste exactly like cakes made with traditional dairy recipes, they can still be quite delicious. In fact, in some cases they can be even better when prepared by a seasoned vegan baker.
One of the best ways to sample the many different varieties of vegan cake is to visit a vegan bakery. Such bakeries are not especially common, but they do exist in a number of cities. If there isn't a vegan bakery in your town, consider looking for them when you are on vacation or traveling for business.
