To hope my gluten free & vegan cake might rise?

[hardheadedwoman]

Ok it’s not really AIBU but hoping for traffic

I need to make GF & V cakes regularly. I made a batch of muffins that were fine first time. Fine but not amazing.

Tonight I tried to make a chocolate loaf substituting eggs with egg replacer, Pure sunflower spread for butter, GF flour. I switched the milk in the standard recipe with oil and some applesauce as recommended on various blogs. First try was v tasty but sank in the middle massively.

Second batch I added more baking powder, increased the ingredients by a third and made the oven hotter for first 15 mins then turned it down to normal temperature. Looked great initially then sunk as bad as the first batch.

What am I doing wrong? I suspect the bigger amount of banking powder was to blame but am I safer with a traybake rather than trying a loaf?

Any recommendations gratefully received

Too much baking powder makes a cake rise too quickly then sink.

Hmm. Sounds to me like you've replaced a lot of things in that recipe - you might do better to find a vegan GF recipe to start with, as that at least will have been validated by someone else!

I recommend the doves farm free from gluten free flour (I get it from Tescos or Sainsburys) - it rises the best but I still add baking powder.

Honestly though I’d stick to tray bakes or brownies; although I like the dairy and gluten free cakes I make, to me they’re still not as nice nor as easy to make as regular cake. Can’t tell the difference with my brownies though!

What I would say is avoid trying to make buttercream with vegetable / sunflower spread - I did that last weekend and you can definitely taste the difference, no matter how much icing sugar or vanilla I put in it, and it is not good! If you have any recommendations which don’t make buttercream taste like cack it would be really useful :)

You could try a crazy cake batter rather than egg replacements. I always found recipes with egg replacers, apple sauce or blended bananas were temperamental.

I find muffins and cakes in sandwich tins work best as they are thin and do not have to rise too much. Banana cakes and carrot cakes work quite well. Lockheart for buttercream try Tomor vegetarian block or Stork mixed with Trex. It's tricky to get the Trex completely blended but it tastes less buttery. Add some lemon juice and good vanilla essence.

Thanks a v much, v useful. I will try again tomorrow with a traybake and use a specific recipe rather than substituting from a normal recipe. I am determined to crack this!

Jessica what’s a crazy cake batter, do you have a link please?

Have you tried Xanthan gum?

I have seen xanthan gum in blogs - have you tried it?

I use oat milk instead of normal milk and I normally use banana to replace eggs, but depends on what flavour you are going for. I do agree that finding specific recipes are much easier rather than making several substitutions

Often vegan baking relies on the combination of acid and bicarb to create a reaction which assists with rising. Many vegan recipes will have non-dairy milk (soy, almond) mixed with a little apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice) which when added to flour with bicarbonate soda (baking soda) & baking powder present will immediately react and create rising. With vegan baking, it's critical to have everything ready to go (pans greased, oven heated) and do the final mixing quickly so the cake is in the oven to take advantage of the reaction.

I usually use self-raising flour with an extra teaspoon or so of bi-carb and soy milk with a couple teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, and that generally works pretty well. I've not done a lots of GF Vegan baking, generally though, denser cakes with almond meal/gf flour will work better.

Don't know much about gluten-free baking, the gluten in regular flour helps to hold the baking cake up as it rises, so as PPs have said, you will need additions such as xanthan gum to gluten-free type flours. Some of the pre-prepared gluten-free flour mixes with have this already added. Bob's Red Mill GF Flour seems to be a good one.

You really need to find some dedicated GF Vegan recipes. Try Pinterest, there's lots of recipes out there these days. There is a fabulous UK based blogger with great allergy free vegan recipes, check out Lucy's Friendly Foods.

So yeah, to answer your question, your cakes are rising in the oven with the raising agents, but because there's no gluten in the flour to hold them up, they will sink again. You need to have something in the mix so they stay up. Hence, denser mixtures such as banana breads, dense chocolate brownie type slice, hummingbird or carrot cakes are your best bet.

Thanks Rural, I’ll give that a go next time!

Have you tried making a chocolate courgette loaf cake with egg replacer? I've not done a gluten free one but I have done a vegan one (goodness knows where the recipe is but was basically courgette, sr flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, egg replacer & vitalite). I bet you could find a recipe that you could make gluten free pretty easily and having courgette in it gives you extra moisture which I find helps when using egg replacer. Doesn't taste of courgette either, unlike some chocolate beetroot cakes.

Use xantham gum with caution. I never found it improved a single gf thing I baked (admittedly I used eggs) and it can cause constipation. If you want to try something similar I would try psillium husk powder instead. I subbed that (in place of xantham gum) for a while and eventually tried doing without and never found it made any difference.

As pp said, you may do better if you just start with an egg-free, gf recipe.
I also would recommend aluminium-free baking powder if you can find it. You can add a bit more when required (which you might need if using no eggs) without risking that metallic soda taste.

If rising is the issue you will almost certainly do better with a traybake.

Grr, sorry - xanthan gum not xantham.

My notes.

• when translating from original recipe, I find I need to reduce the proportion of liquid. Trial and error has led me to a couple of standard recipes I now constantly use.
• hydration time is essential. At least half an hour if not more between mixing and baking.
• gluten is a protein. Check your mix because some of them are all carbohydrate and add some if needed. I found a tbs of lupin flour in my mix baked beautifully. Besan, chick pea, millet are others.
• xanthan has been mentioned and I use 1/2 tsp regularly. Hydrated psyllium, linseed. Teff only needs small quantities added. Soy is a natural emulsifier which is why you see it so often.
• I bake a bit lower and longer but get my best results using a fully preheated baking tray to sit on.

No matter what it looks like, it will taste fine. Dd recently said she missed my chocolate fudge cake. I didn’t/don’t miss my stomach sinking in time with my damn cake.

Thanks v much for the tips! Off to Holland and Barratt this morning!

No worries :) Divine Vegan is quite good for vegan and GF, I think, if you're looking online! Can't see a chocolate loaf recipe in the book I've got but she may have one on the web.

Minimalist Baker is another vegan and gluten free blogger. Her recipes are divine, and I've never had too many issues finding ingredients that work in the recipes, despite not being in the US.

Here's the link to a crazy cake recipe.
crazy cake

As Mum2 mentioned they rely on vinegar interacting with the baking soda.
I find coconut flour is great for gf vegan cakes, just increase your liquids. I use this basic crazy cake mix as a basis for all my gf vegan cakes. Add mixed spice and treacle for a gingerbread; jam and apricots for a clafoutis, etc. The resulting cakes are light and fluffy and don't have that horrible aftertaste that some gf vegan recipes can have. I actually adapt GBBO recipes just using it as a base and they work out fine. Good luck!