The (Mis)Adventures of Vegan Sponge Cake

Original post 4/8/12

Sorry for the long silence between posts. Life gets hectic sometimes. Thankfully Kurasune has returned (yay) and we are up to our old antics again.  

I've actually been meaning to try out this vegan sponge cake recipe for a while, ever since my friend in Olympia (limulimu) made some for me to eat. Her hubby can't eat a lot of things so it was fun to try out foods I normally don't eat. Either way I was curious to see how it would turn out once I tried my hand at it. My friend Pamesque is allergic to eggs and usually complains about the texture of eggless cakes so I decided this weekend would be the weekend of vegan baking! woohoo!

Kurasune was kind enough to let me into her kitchen and use her lovely baking supplies. As usual we gathered all our ingredients before starting (it's always a good idea since you can find out before starting if you're short anything rather than mid way). FYI recipe is at the end of the post.

As you can see, no meat or dairy products there...when we saw the ingredient list we puzzled over that apple cider vinegar. After some Google-fu, we discovered that apparently soy + apple cider vinegar simulates buttermilk. Cool! Learn something new every day :)

After assembling all our ingredients (and of course the always necessary hamming it up photos--note to our gentle readers, eat salt and oil in moderation.  Heart attacks may result from excessive consumption.) we greased our two 8"x8" pans. Then put the vinegar + soy milk into a medium bowl and let it sit while we put all the dry ingredients into the large bowl. Whisk the dry stuff so it's nice and even (note: do not use coarse salt...I will explain later, as Kurasune only had coarse salt available)

Next we put all the 'wet' ingredients in with the soy mixture and mixed it well. Once that was done, it looked quite...well... unappetizing with all that oil floating on top and the vinegar was slightly curdling the soy (or so it looked to us).

Now with that lovely mixture, add it to the dry ingredients. I made a well first in the dry so it incorporated better. Now just blend it all together until the lumps are gone (or mostly). Try not to over mix.

Put half of the batter into each pan and then pop it into the oven. It'll take about 18-22 minutes to bake, just test with a toothpick, or test if it springs back when you touch it for doneness.

Now you can do whatever you want with it! Kurasune made a lovely blackberry filling and we sandwiched it all together. Toss a bit of icing sugar on top and we had a lovely looking vegan cake!

This is actually almost identical to the regular (non-vegan, butter, cream and egg rich) "Cake Classic" - Victoria Sandwich that we've done in the past.  Post HERE

Now some notes. We ended up using coarse salt. Do not use this unless you pound it or grind it to a fine consistency before using. You'll end up with 'salt pockets' in the cake which will surprise those not expecting a burst of saltiness when eating a cake. I think it also changes the texture slightly as the baking soda and baking powder may reactive differently and create large air pockets around the salt. My friend Pam very much enjoyed the cake though, and said that she loved the consistency and the lightness of it.

I was talking with Kurasune today, and though the salt pockets weren't great in our view (the boys seemed to like it though) the coarse salt gave us an idea...next time we're going to use those Belgium sugar crystals in the batter much like those in waffles to make 'sugar crunch pockets'. But alas, that's for another day.

Onto the recipe which apparently comes from "Vegan Yum Yum Book"

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cup of soy milk mixed with
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees and grease two 8x8 inch baking pans.
• Add the apple cider vinegar to the soymilk and set aside.
• Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt together in a large bowl.
• Add the oil and vanilla and almond extract to the soy milk mixture and mix, then add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until ther are no more lumps or just a few small lumps.
• Spread te batter out evently between the two baking pans
• Bake for 18-22 minutes or until golden on the top, a toothpick tets clean and the cake springs back.
• Let cool and you're done!