We’ve all picked up new obsessions during lockdown, mine seems to be the desire to create the ideal, easy, gluten free and vegan cake. I’ve spent a fair amount of time working on these cakes and we’ve had a lot of not-good cake to get through. Both types of cakes have the same issues – structure. Gluten free cakes rely on the protein in the eggs to maintain their structure while vegan cakes typically need the gluten in flour. If you’ve ever tried to make a cake that combines these two aspects and it’s collapsed, this is why.
If you don’t want to hear me ramble on about the fundamentals of baking and just want the recipe then scroll down now.
In your standard, old fashioned, basic cake there are four main pillars to baking; structure, tenderness, moisture/dryness, and leavening. Remove any one of these pillars and your cake won’t work.
- Leavening is the process by which a cake lifts, normally by creating air bubbles. This is done with eggs, sugar, and raising agents like baking powder.
- Structure typically depends on gluten or egg proteins. A cake structure is weakened by sugar and fat.
- Drying Agents are needed to avoid a soggy cake, this is normally achieved with flour starch, gluten, and egg proteins. This is offset by fat and liquids, in proportion to the amount of sugar used.
- Tenderness (or softness) is built by fat, liquid, sugar and acid.
To make a cake that is both vegan and gluten free, you’ve have to pull out the structure builders, a key leavening ingredient in the eggs, and most of the drying agents. This results in a collapsed, soggy cake. But, I think I’ve finally cracked it for one of my family’s most treasured recipes. Here I’ve replaced the missing structure builders with xantham gum to replace the gluten, and chickpea flour to replace the missing protein. The chickpea flour needs to be countered with extra liquid to avoid a dry cake so I’ve used vegan buttermilk as the liquid here as this isn’t just liquid but adds tenderness, and increases the reaction with the raising agents. Unfortunately, chickpea flour does have a taste to it so I really wouldn’t recommend tasting the raw batter and this amendment will only work with strongly flavoured cakes.
The cake I chose to adapt with this recipe is my mother’s coffee and walnut cake. With a light hint of coffee and the crunch of walnuts spread among a gloriously light sponge it’s always insanely popular. Whenever she makes it, it disappears so quickly and everybody loves it.
I hope you enjoy this cake as much as we do!
- Makes: Double layer 9 inch cake
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 270ml Plant based milk (almond milk works best here)
- 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 90g Chickpea Flour
- 200g Caster Sugar
- 200g Gluten free Flour*
- 3/4 tsp Xantham Gum**
- 200g Vegan Margarine, room temperature
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 2 tsp Bicarbonate soda
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2½ Tbsp Instant Coffee
- 100g Walnuts, roughly chopped
For the Coffee Buttercream Icing:
- 200g Vegan Butter, room temperature
- 4 tsp Instant Coffee
- 2 Tbsp Hot Water
- 600g Icing Sugar
- Plant based Milk, as needed (Oat milk works best here)
- Walnut Halves, for decoration (optional)
Directions
Mix together your milk and vinegar and allow to stand for 5-10 minutes. Just before you’re ready to start mixing your batter warm your milk mix till steaming and dissolve in the coffee.
Preheat your oven to 180C (165C fan) and prepare either two 9 inch cake tins by greasing them and lining the bases with greaseproof paper, or a cupcake tray with liners if you’re doing cupcakes.
If you’re using the walnuts, toss them in no more than a few teaspoons of your flour and put to one side Sieve together the rest of your dry ingredients so there are no lumps and they are fully combined.
We’re using the all in method here so add your wet ingredients to the dry and beat until smooth and combined. Carefully gently fold in the walnut pieces so as to not loose any of the air you’ve gathered. Your batter should be very thick.
Working quite quickly now, spoon your batter evenly into your prepared tin(s) and lightly smooth over. If you’re baking cupcakes then fill to no more than 2 thirds full. Bake for 40-45 minutes (30 minutes for cupcakes). The ‘toothpick test’ generally doesn’t work with gluten free cakes so you need to look for the cake bouncing back when touched, pulling away from the sides and when you listen to it the ‘singing’ should be almost completely subdued. Remove your cakes from the tins and place on a wire rack till completely cool.
For the icing, beat the butter until very smooth, then beat in the coffee and icing sugar. Finally, thin out as needed with the plant milk until you reach your desired consistency. Use half of your icing to sandwich the cake halves together, spread the rest on the top and decorate with the walnut halves.
Notes
* I tend to make my own blend but shop bought blends work well too for this. If you want to sub in normal flour then a 1:1 substitution should work but drop the cooking time down to 25-30 minutes.
**Check your gluten free flour – if it automatically contains xantham gum then skip this.
Allergy Notes; This cake is vegan, gluten free, and (depending on your choice of diary free butters and milk) should be soy free. If nuts are an allergen for you then just skip them in this recipe – it’ll still be a great coffee cake!
