My vegan vanilla cake is super moist, with a melt-in-your-mouth, fluffy crumb and rich, aromatic vanilla flavor. It’s filled and frosted with my Vegan Vanilla American Dreamy Buttercream, and this plant-based version is just like all my frostings on my site: silky smooth and not too sweet. Top this cake off with some fresh berries, and you’ll get a spectacular cake worthy of any celebration. 

There’s often the stigma that vegan cakes are inferior to non-vegan cakes. I’m going to do my best to dispel that stigma with a bit of science + experimentation. I’ve been working on this for a while and am excited to present some great ideas that you can even transfer to other aspects of vegan (or even traditional) baking. And to preface, I’m going to reference those conventional (non-vegan) vanilla cakes quite a bit, because that served as my control for designing this cake.

Now, when I start development of a cake recipe, I focus on two (big) things:

• flavor/taste; and
• texture.

And when it comes to flavor, I’m usually not too intimidated because I try to get to a level of understanding of the molecular makeup of ingredients (and therefore how it contributes to taste/flavor perception) to address any shortcomings in that department. This cake does have flavor curveballs, however, and I’ll get to that in a second.

Let’s start with what I think is the bigger issue: the structure and texture of vegan cakes. And this is the case where looks can be deceiving (for both the recipe developer and the home baker following a vegan recipe), because although some cakes appear to bake up light and fluffy, they turn gummy or pasty in your mouth when you eat them. And in my opinion, that just defeats the whole purpose and experience of eating a great homemade cake. So, how to fix this?

​​What If Vegan Cakes Aren’t Inferior… Just Under-Engineered?

Let’s start with an analogy: If you think of a cake like a simple tiny house, there are parts of the house (or ingredients) that function in certain ways to hold the house up. 

And I know that houses are hollow, but for this example, let’s pretend that this house is filled, solid - like a solid cake 🙂 

• Proteins act as the scaffolding, or skeleton, that provides the frame of the house. 
• Starches are the squishy insulation that can support the scaffolding and fill in the spaces between it. 
• Then there are, of course, other things like fats, sugars, and water (or proteins that don’t participate in the scaffolding), and these help with different aspects of the cake, but structurally they typically need to be supported rather than serving as the support. So think of them as being held in place in the scaffolding matrix. 

In vegan recipes, eggs are omitted because they are derived from animals. But they are among the strongest sources of protein in baking and a main scaffolding component.

And what I’m seeing in most vegan cake recipes is that more starch (in the form of flour) is often added to compensate for this lack of protein, since starch can have some structural properties. (There are also other methods, such as using a flax/seed based proteins, etc. but I think starch replacers are more common.)

However, flour has weaker structural capabilities, making the cake inherently less stable. That’s because starches undergo what’s called “gelatinization.” I know this sounds like “gelatin,” which is derived from animal collagen, but gelatinization, when used in the context of starches, refers to the thickening that occurs when starches expand in liquids. And gelatinization is just not as robust as the interaction that proteins, particularly egg proteins, undergo when exposed to heat (coagulation). 

However, if you use starches as a protein substitution, you absolutely can get a cake that bakes up looking somewhat normal - fluffy crumbs spread throughout what can be a dense to somewhat open crumb structure. Back to the house analogy, you can probably build some semblance of a “house structure” by squishing together some insulation. You could just pile things up and squish them together, and they may stick, but how stable is that structure? 

With the cake, you’ll know exactly how fragile a starch-structured scaffolding is because when you handle the cake, it breaks apart very easily. And when eaten, it is quite mushy, which makes sense. It has so much gelatinization (usually in the form of flour) that it offers no resistance when eaten and turns to mush immediately.

So then, we are confronted with one of the oldest vegan dilemmas, albeit the “cake edition”: where are we getting our protein? Turns out, we just need to find the right ones.

The Vegan Cake Experiments

In my experiments, I’ve found that two different categories of protein can help vegan cakes with structure:

1. Legume-based proteins; and
2. Gluten.

Let’s cover legume-based proteins first. 

My inspiration for this idea came while eating dosas, which are traditionally made with lentils (I love dosas!). And I figured there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here - when looking for vegetarian sources of protein, the South Asians have mastered this for millennia. I just had to find it, so I did a bit of research on high-protein flours to find the most accessible one that would work best for a vanilla cake.

The two that I narrowed down and worked with the most were soy flour and chickpea flour.

Soya flour was a clear winner structurally. It produced fluffy crumbs, but oh man, did it have a very green-vegetal (almost bitter?) flavor in the cake. And this is coming from someone who has eaten tofu and all kinds of soy products her whole life - I couldn’t get past the flavor no matter what I tried. Given the amount I had to add to the cake batter to get the result you’re seeing, there is a trade-off in taste. I just wasn’t sure if that was going to fly with you all.

I was so entranced by soy flour’s strength that I tried different types of soymilks, thinking it could do the job without the strong flavor. But something is happening to my beloved soy proteins during the pasteurization of these milks that impairs their ability to build structure in the cake. You can see that because the centers of the cakes were caving inwards.

Could you go out and milk your own soybeans to bypass this effect? Perhaps - but that’s a lot of work for a singular ingredient in a cake. And no, we can’t use tofu - that’s already pre-coagulated, and with cakes, we need something that will set up as it bakes.

So I scrapped the soya flour and moved on to chickpea flour, which has less protein but is far milder in flavor. It struck the right balance of structure and flavor, but I had to experiment with the flour concentrations; I figured that out in the next set of experiments and you'll see the chickpea cakes are a little taller as a result.

And you can see that it’s not nearly as fluffy or tall as the soybean flour cake, but I was already experimenting with another source of protein that helped with this: gluten.

Wait, aren't we supposed to prevent gluten formation in cakes?

I know this goes against everything we’ve been taught about cakes - we do everything in our power to reduce gluten, e.g., lower-protein flours like cake flour, bleaching flour to destroy the proteins, and mixing as little as possible to prevent the proteins from sticking together. And I still think that is very true - but limited to traditional types of cakes where you can rely on things like eggs for background structure.

I have been working with yeast-leavened breads for the past year, hoping to develop recipes by refining my enriched breads and tinkering with sourdough. And so, of course, I have been researching as much as I can regarding microbial fermentation, dough structure, etc. 

And gluten is such an interesting topic because sometimes it is *the* structural scaffolding in recipes that don’t have to have other sources of protein (e.g., sourdough doesn’t contain eggs but usually only water, yeast, flour + salt) 

So I thought - why not try adding gluten to these vegan cake recipes? And I found gluten helps give the cake structure a bit of a boost. The thing is, it only works in conjunction with another source of protein, which leads me to think it helps with initial aeration and structuring. In contrast, the chickpea protein is helping solidify the structure. You can see this down below:

The other thing is that you have to use only a portion of the flour - if you use all the flour to develop gluten, then yeah, you’ll get an overly chewy texture that overpowers any semblance of fluffiness in a cake crumb. But I’ve figured out the ratio. of how much flour to use for us, and I’ll annotate it very carefully in the recipe card down below.

What is the flavor of my Vegan Vanilla Cake?

As written, my vegan vanilla cake has a slight butteriness, a hint of sweet floral vanilla, and a subtle nuttiness from the chickpea powder. 

Now, the chickpea flavor is going to be a little bit different if you’re not used to it - but if you’re into vegan foods, you probably are! As an omnivore myself, I find the flavor very mellow, slightly savory and nutty, and quite pleasant. 

However, some bakers may want to reduce the “beany-ness”, so let me teach you how the level and type of extracts can determine how much (if any) of the chickpea flavor remains.

No extract (control): light beany flavor
Real Vanilla extract (Kirkland Signature): light beany flavor with vanilla aroma
Butter-Vanilla extract (LorAnn): light butter, light vanilla, very light beany flavor
Butter extract (LorAnn): Butter forward, slightest trace of bean flavor
Buttery Sweet Dough (LorAnn): tastes like a buttery sugar cookie, with a slight trace of bean flavor
Ube extract (Butterfly): ube forward, slightest trace of bean flavor

I’ve also tried: 

almond extract (McCormick) with vanilla (not pictured): almond forward, with a slight trace of bean flavor

Cake Batter (McCormick): Oh goodness, this was not good, in my opinion. It was quite strange in an artificial way - and I don’t mind artificial vanilla at all, but there was a chemical-like aftertaste to it that I didn’t enjoy.

My favorite? Butter and vanilla extracts, as I wrote in my recipe. (Sweet buttery dough is such a wonderful flavor too - and I liked it so much I used it in my frosting.) I also have a really cool flavor booster for this cake, so let's get into the ingredeints!

What ingredients do you need to make my Vegan Vanilla Cake?

UNBLEACHED ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR
There are two bowls of flour pictured because this recipe uses flour in two ways. The smaller bowl is used to build a gluten network, and the larger bowl provides the cake with starches, giving it fluffiness and volume.

CHICKPEA FLOUR OR BESAN
Chickpea flour and besan are finely ground powders of garbanzo beans. Without an extra source of protein, vegan cakes often have a mushy texture, and I’ve found that chickpea flour offers a less-msuhy cake texture and lighter flavor.

I’m finding the labelling for this product to sometimes be a bit non-specific, but I think generally, besan is a powder from split brown chickpeas, whereas chickpea powder is from white chickpeas. You can use either one, but in my experiments, besan typically has more protein and therefore yields a slightly taller cake; the trade-off is a stronger “beany” aroma (still delicious). With either one, you’ll get a somewhat mellow “beany” aroma to the cake that can be easily masked with extracts if you want. 

WATER
Water hydrates the flour to initiate gluten development, dissolves the sugars, and helps gelatinize the starches. It’s important to use room-temperature water, as this allows the batter reach the right temperature before it hits the oven, ensuring a more even and fluffier rise. 

SUGAR
White sugar is the primary source of sugar and, therefore, sweetness for this cake. 

BAKING POWDER
For this cake, we’ll need a double-acting baking powder. This chemical leavening agent produces carbon dioxide first when hydrated and again when heated, making the batter rise. 

WHITE MISO PASTE
As an optional flavoring ingredient, white miso paste adds umami and depth from fermented soybeans and rice. You can omit this ingredient, as it will not affect the cake's structure or texture, but I do enjoy it in this cake.

Conventional egg-based vanilla cakes have a savory-umami undertone, which I find lacking in vegan desserts. Umami-based ingredients are not typically common for sweet-based baking, but used in moderation will add a depth of flavor complexity that I find absolutely delicious.

OIL
I tried a few different fats and oils in this cake batter, and vegetable oil performed best. It’s 100% lipids and did not interfere with the rise or crumb. 

VANILLA EXTRACT / BUTTER EXTRACT
Vanilla is essential for flavoring this cake, but on its own, it’s a very light flavor that really acts as a flavor booster. I really like using butter extract alongside vanilla to get that genuine “vanilla cake” flavor.

SALT
Salt enhances all other flavors by suppressing bitterness and balancing sweetness.