Recipe Review: Vegan Sponge Cake

Angel food cake, rolled cakes, genoise cake, even Boston cream pie –

All are variations of the humble yet intimidating sponge cake, a dessert for which egg whites are whipped with sugar and folded into a mixture of their yolks and flour.

It’s simple and complex! Simple because ingredients are employed according to their natural abilities: egg whites leaven, sugar stabilizes, yolks tenderize, and flour supports. Not a single chemical is summoned to help.

Yet complex because egg whites can be elusive. An ill-timed blink could reveal the futile overwhipped stage forcing you to restart (if you have any physical and/or mental resources left to do so).

Does It (Sponge Cake) Vegan?

The short answer is, “No”. My most recent attempt at veganizing a sponge cake involved the master recipe from Maddison Koutrouba behind The Squeaky Mixer.

Before proceeding, I must praise Maddison and her blog! She is an exquisite baker and teacher. My failure to veganize her sponge cake is unrelated to her ingredients and tutorials; my substitutions simply didn’t work.

I swapped egg yolks for egg replacer; whites for aquafaba. Instead of whole milk, I used unsweetened vanilla soy milk and omitted vanilla extract to eliminate anything that could cause aquafaba to deflate such as alcohol and excess liquid.

I also added melted refined coconut oil instead of vegetable oil to better simulate a whole milk mouthfeel, substituted cream of tartar for vinegar (again, to reduce liquid), and ground my sugar to ensure it would dissolve with minimal mixing.

In the end, the only ingredient I hadn’t touched was flour! And…

I made a pancake. a (somewhat) successfully decorated pancake as I also tried her piping technique, but a pancake nevertheless.

Time for a Recipe Review!

Vegan recipes are, sometimes woefully, not what they say they are. But names like “Plant-Based Approximation of an Egg-Based Confection” are too long! Besides, no one types them into search bars.

I approximately needed a sponge cake. or a genoise cake. or an angel food cake. Consequently, I scoured my resources for the most promising vegan version of each one:

Click for my reviews!

Vegan Angel Food Cake

Vegan Angel Food Cake by Caitlin Conner on her blog plant.well is a delightfully fluffy cake! As soon as I removed her recipe from my pan, I was impressed by its resemblance to a conventional angel food cake.

I was also glad I questioned her instruction to pour my batter into an ungreased pan. The center and sides suggested the whole recipe would’ve stuck if I hadn’t lined the bottom of my (nonstick) vessel!

Yet fluffy and spongey aren’t equal. Though I would treat Caitlin’s cake like an angel food cake by serving it with whipped “cream” and berries, I would also call it a tea cake.

To be sure, her recipe is wonderfully moist and versatile, ready to mobilize mixed berry jam, vegan lemon curd, or both over two helpings! But structurally, it lacks that characteristic spring making angel food cake an undeniable member of the sponge cake family.

Back to Cake Buttons

Vegan Genoise Cake

Genoise Cake by Karolina Tegelaar in her cookbook The Vegan Baking Bible is everything I expect in a genoise from the relatable, “Will it work?” anxiety to the springiness when it does.

Whipping aquafaba and sugar to the ribbon stage required a watchful eye, but once achieved, folding-in the remaining ingredients was fairly easy. I made a single, arrestingly beautiful 7-in (18-cm) layer that I will absolutely be doubling for special occasions.

My only reservation is that anxiety!

This batter is tricky to mix, so be prepared and use the tips below and try other sponge cakes that are easier first.

gulp!

So when she says, “Prepare the tins with crumbs, semolina or baking paper,” does she mean bottom and sides? If I use crumbs or semolina, should I grease my pan first even though grease is notoriously disastrous for whips?

I started to doubt techniques I typically feel confident executing. Thankfully, joining an aquafaba Facebook group (Yes, those exist!) in which Karolina posted about her cake helped answer enough questions to start baking it. I really don’t have to whip my aquafaba until stiff!

But my creativity was definitely hindered. Again, hers is a gorgeous dessert! Yet the only freedom it offers beyond toppings is the option to use a 6-in (15-cm) pan instead.

And for my own record, I lined the bottom and sides of my pan with parchment, but will grease it first next time; some cake stuck where parchment ends didn’t meet.

Future me will also use aquafaba from cannellini beans since, compared the other cakes herein, this one carried a slight beany flavor from the can of chickpeas I used.

Back to Cake Buttons

Vegan Sponge Cake

I had a suspicion (Perfect) Vegan (Vanilla) Sponge Cake by Bianca Zapatka on her blog of the same name would become my go-to! The media preceding her recipe card illustrated a cake that would be dense yet tender, ideal for shaping as well as layering.

And it is! My brain went wild thinking of those rolled cakes and Boston cream pie I mentioned earlier.

My current plan, however, is to combine her sponge cake with Maddison’s (The Squeaky Mixer’s) technique of piping colored batter for baked-in designs. Bianca’s recipe will need to be doubled to mimic the thickness of one of Maddison’s layers, but beyond that, it is perfect indeed. It can even be gluten-free!

Back to Cake Buttons

So…which cake won?

all of them!

Each recipe serves a purpose:

While I predict I will be using Bianca’s recipe most often, I will also be placing the other two recipes in my toolkit. Thank you, all three of you, for your invaluable artistry!

Published by Does It Vegan?