Vegan cake horror - what do I do?

[onetiredmummy]

My sister's birthday was last week & I made a vegan sponge cake. I'm no stranger to baking & haven't had a cake disaster in years.

However this vegan sponge was just nasty! The recipe was basically to replace the eggs & splash of milk with vegetable oil & water & use vegan 'butter'. It was horrible, dense, oily, hadn't risen at all & if it hadn't been for the buttercream I doubt anyone would have eaten it.

So I thought, wrong recipe, & tried an old faithful recipe tonight but substituted again with vegan butter & used a vegan egg substitute. It didn't rise again but was better tasting & was edible.

Its still no way equal to my usual non vegan cakes. But what do I do with future birthdays, do I stick to my usual non vegan recipe which produces a nicer cake but excludes my sister. Or do I make a vegan one that is not as nice but that everyone can eat?

Not sure what I should be doing.

Isn't carrot cake vegan?

Where was the recipe from?

I have never had a failure with vegan cake. I tend to favour a 'flax egg' but also sometimes use soya milk curdled with vinegar method which I don't like quite as much.

This recipe is a particular favourite with my omni family

you can't substitute like that, it doesn't work. Baking is chemistry.

Agree, make a carrot cake, its naturally vegan. Or use a recipe that is designed as a vegan recipe. Sponges are unlikely to work, they are how they are due to the eggs and butter, you can't acheive the same result with vegan ingredients. There are a lot of good vegan chocolate cake recipes about.

I've done vegan chocolate cakes before now that have worked quite well - probably easier than sponge.

I like the look of this recipe.
witness.guardian.co.uk/assignment/51b8844be4b0c7862b2e3f6c

I use this brownie recipe as a cake. You can drizze icing over the top for a fancy finish.

Cecy this was the recipe www.vegansociety.com/caterers/recipes/vanilla-sponge.aspx

Tonight I used Pure sunflower spread that says on the packaging it is suitable for baking & no egg by Orgran instead of chicken eggs.

Thanks for the links, I will try carrot cake as well :)

Go to this site - the writer can't eat eggs or dairy so everything has to be vegan (other than the meat and fish...) As she also can't eat wheat you'd need to get some gluten-free flour - you can't use ordinary cos of chemistry - but there's some blooming lovely cakes on there.

I sometimes wonder what on earth the Vegan Society are doing, not exactly promoting the cause with a recipe like that!

Can someone link to a nice vegan carrot cake recipe please? I like carrot cake but would prefer a tried and tested recipe!

I would never trust a vegan sponge recipe, tbh, I've tried loads and they never come out right. I don't bother anymore.

Check out the post punk kitchen website. They've got lots of lovely vegan recipes.

I made this cake with this recipe

I am not vegan but I have a friend who is. I made her [http://www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/ the best chocolate cake ever] and it was truly delicious. So much so that I've made it several times since for non-vegan friends and no-one's ever noticed that it's not a "normal" cake.

I didn't put the dotty things on the top, though. I used tiny little sugar stars, which looked much nicer.

Link to cake, sorry.