Vegan Apple Cake

This is yet another recipe from the Taste of Home Baking Book. I had half a dozen apples in the fridge. I browsed the index for recipes with apples and found this apple cake recipe. The recipe was very simple, used only one egg, so easy to substitute the egg. The cake came out very well. It was very moist and fluffy, but over the top sweet. The original recipe used 1 cup sugar and the apples I used were sweet too, so the cake became very sweet. So I have changed the recipe to 3/4 cup of sugar. I was wondering what to do with the cake, then got this (wonderful) idea. I was not sure whether it would work, but I was totally surprised and happy with the result. Check the My Notes section to see what I did. But this apple cake recipe is definitely a keeper for its easy prep and unbelievably moist and fluffy texture for a vegan cake.
Yield: 9 servings
2 In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Since the quantity of butter is very less, the creamed mixture was dry and resembled coarse crumbs.
3 In a blender/food processor blend together Ener-G, water, soy milk and vanilla extract until nice and foamy.
4 Add the Ener-G mixture to the creamed butter/sugar and beat everything together with the hand mixer until thoroughly combined. This mixture looks creamy like a white sauce.
5 In another bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg (if using). Add this to the wet ingredients. The batter will be thick.
6 Stir in apples and nuts. Mix it thoroughly.
7 Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with just a few crumbs. Mine was done around 38 minutes. You can also see that the cake starts pulling from the edges.
8 This cake can be sliced directly from the pan while its still warm, so no need to wait for the pan to cool to invert it and then slice it.
2 The apples were required to be diced, but I grated it because I was not sure if my son would eat the cake if it had chunks of apples in it. He usually eats all fruits and especially apples and pears are his favorite. But I can never guess him. The apples were really invisible, so if you have a picky eater sneak the apples by grating.
3 I was wondering what to do about the sweetness. If it’s not sweet enough you can always sprinkle some powdered sugar, have it with vanilla ice cream etc. But how to reduce the sweetness. Then I got this idea of coating the cake with unsweetened chocolate so that the bitterness would offset the sweetness. I wanted to try it immediately but did not have it at home. Sent my husband immediately to the grocery store and he got the Baker’s unsweetened baking chocolate. It’s a pack of 8 individually wrapped squares of plain chocolate. I wanted to test very little first. So melted 3 squares in the microwave oven. Cooled it a little bit. I decided to shaped the cake into small balls and dip it in the melted chocolate so that it would resemble truffles. Since the cake was slightly warm and moist I was able to proceed with the idea and shaped them into small balls. Dipped the cake quickly into the melted chocolate and placed it in a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I had a perfect slice of cake as well. My husband dipped 3 sides of the cake in the chocolate. I placed the baking sheet in the fridge for the chocolate to set. I couldn’t contain my excitement to taste it. Managed to wait until the next day morning. The chocolate had set perfectly and I took a bite of the apple cake truffle and was literally doing the happy dance. It tasted so good! The bitterness of the unsweetened chocolate took care of the sweetness perfectly. The taste was phenomenal. I’m very glad that I tried this apple cake recipe.


This is my 4th entry for Egg Replacement Event – Egg Replacer Powder hosted by me.
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October 27th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Madhuram,
i tried this recipe today, followed it to the T but it came out more like apple cobbler instead of cake. First i thought three cups of shredded apples are too much to 1 cup of flour but went ahead with it (i also used whole wheat pastry flour). Didn’t come out as fluffy as yours look in the pic. I do not know where things went wrong. First i thought i will use vinegar as egg substitute but the batter looked very dry so used the EnerG with soy milk. In my experience, i have found vinegar to be be best egg substitute for fluffy cakes. The taste of this cake however was awesome. Plus it was full of apples and walnuts so didn’t feel too guilty eating it. Anyway let me know what are your thoughts on this.
Hi Hetal, I’m sorry it did not work out for you. It was a very fluffy cake and I too was not able to slice it perfectly. I agree with you that vinegar gives the fluffiness for egg free cakes. Did you blend the EnerG in a blender? I feel that simply whisking it with a fork does not give desired results. After a couple of trials, I also feel that using warm water/milk while blending gives better results. I’ll try to bake this cake once again and will give you the feedback.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Hi
Can’t wait to bake this cake.Your website is a great resource for novice bakers like me..
Just wondering if I could use flax seeds instead of Energer egg replacer..If yes,how much shd I be using?Also was thinking of doing brown sugar instead of white..what’s your opinion?
Thanks
Geetha
Thanks for your kind words Geetha. Blend together 1 teaspoon of flax seed powder with 1/4 cup water. Don’t just use a fork, use a blender/food processor for good results. You can go with brown sugar. In any case reduce the quantity of sugar as I have mentioned in the Notes section because it was way to sweet.
October 4th, 2009 at 8:18 am
hi madhu,
I used 1/4 cup yoghurt(instead of egg) and also used 3 tbsp milk too. may be bcoz of this???
yummy cake!!!
tried it this weekend, was good. but not as fluffy as yours.
but the taste was great!!!
That might be the reason Priya. Thank you very much for trying it.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Dear Madhu,
Thanks a lot for your reply!
I live in Abidjan which is in a country called Ivorycoast/Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa. I tried locating the store through the link you posted, but it didnt throw up any responses. Anyways, thanks once again. Will definitely try this with applesauce/yoghurt and let you know the feedback.
Regards,
Devika