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Vegan Vanilla Coconut Cake

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Vegan Vanilla Coconut Cake! A beautiful homemade egg and dairy free vanilla cake paired with a dreamy whipped coconut cream frosting topped with shredded coconut. Making a classic vanilla cake vegan style is easy done in one bowl using simple ingredients. 
If you have ever been looking for a classic plain cake that is made without dairy or eggs, look no further. I’ve been trying and testing vegan cakes on and off over time and was never 100% happy with the end result of many. It can be a difficult task to switch up some classic ingredients with their vegan alternatives and also make them work synergistically with one another to create a wonderful crumb and lift to the cake. I’m so happy to say that this cake is SO incredibly easy to make and it does not taste like it’s vegan, like at all. 
What’s the ingredients for the cake? There’s only 8-ingredients! 
Flour
Baking powder
Baking soda
Caster sugar
Vanilla almond milk
Extra virgin olive oil
Apple cider vinegar
Vanilla

You may be wondering why there is apple cider vinegar in this cake. It’s there to help replace the eggs as it’s reacts directly with the baking powder/soda to help activate them and give lift to the cake, pretty fancy right? As I mentioned earlier, I’m very happy with the crumb of this cake so that goes to show that adding some apple cider vinegar, certainly helps. 
You’ll also see that I’ve used vanilla flavoured almond milk. I find using a vanilla infused plant milk instead of plain really contributes to that gorgeous vanilla flavour to this cake. You can have a plain cake or a vanilla cake, which I guess we can sometimes get mixed up, since I always think plain just also means vanilla, haha. However, this cake I really wanted the vanilla to shine and so it does. If you can’t get your hands on the vanilla almond milk, go ahead and use an unsweetened version, it will still be brilliant! You will also be including 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, YUM! 
The cake itself is also created in one bowl with no electric beaters needed, even better right? I especially love recipes that are so easy you don’t even need any extra equipment to get it made. Just mix your dry ingredients then pour in the liquids. Gently fold it all together and pour into your cake pan. Although the frosting does use electric beater, did I speak too soon about that earlier excitement? Lol.
Let’s chat about the frosting shall we? Because this cake is vegan, I of course opted for the classic no fail coconut cream whipped frosting. What I’m most excited about is the can of coconut whipping cream from Honest to Goodness. Have you ever used actual coconut whipping cream before? Not just the regular canned coconut cream? It’s an absolute game-changer, trust me! Makes life so much easier when making this type of coconut frosting. The one I used (which I’ve linked in above and in the recipe ingredient list) whips up beautifully from the can, no need to scoop out the cream solids from regular coconut cream cans. 
The one trick when using your coconut cream is to refrigerate it overnight before using, this is the most important step, especially is you’re using a regular can of coconut cream as those cream solids need to set at the top so you can scoop them out and use them. Also when making this frosting, it’s best to chill your mixing bowl 15 minutes prior to mixing the frosting ingredients in the bowl. A chilled bowl + chilled coconut cream makes for a creamy and fluffy frosting with soft/stiff peaks! This frosting is lightly sweetened with a tablespoon of maple syrup and of course, vanilla! 

To finish it off, a generous sprinkling of shredded coconut, as it is a coconut vanilla cake. The coconut adds more coconutty flavour and some light texture - amazing! Hope you enjoy this one, Sam x 
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Vegan Vanilla Coconut Cake

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Description

A beautiful homemade egg and dairy free vanilla cake paired with a dreamy whipped coconut cream frosting topped with shredded coconut. Making a classic vanilla cake vegan style is easy done in one bowl using simple ingredients. 

Ingredients

Scale
  • Cake
  • 2 cups (300g) plain all purpose flour
  • 1 ½ tsp (8g) baking powder
  • ½ tsp (3g) baking soda 
  • ¾ cup (150g) raw or white caster sugar
  • 1 ¼ cup (300ml) vanilla almond milk, or plain almond milk if you cannot find vanilla flavoured 
  • ¼ cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tsp (10ml) apple cider vinegar 
  • 2 tsp vanilla bean extract 
  • Coconut Frosting
  • 200g canned coconut whipping cream (half a full 400g can), refrigerate full can overnight. I use Honest to Goodness Organic Coconut Whipping Cream. If you cannot get canned whipping cream, use regular canned coconut cream chilled overnight.  
  • 1 Tbsp (20ml) maple syrup 
  • 1 tsp (7ml) vanilla bean extract 
  • ¾ cup shredded coconut 

Instructions

  1. Note: This recipe uses canned coconut cream, ensure you refrigerate the can overnight before baking the cake. Or make the cake the day before and frost the next day. 
  2. Cake
  3. Preheat oven to 180ºC (356ºF). Grease with butter a round 9-inch baking pan and line with baking paper, set aside. NOTE: Alternatively, if you have a quality non-stick pan, liberally grease it with melted butter and dust it with a light layer of flour. This will leave your finished cake with smooth sides. 
  4. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda. 
  5. Whisk through sugar until well combined. 
  6. Pour in milk, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Gently fold with a spatula until well combined, ensuring not to over-mix, just ensure there is no pockets of flour remaining in the batter.
  7. Pour batter into prepared baking pan. Smoothing out the top. 
  8. Transfer to oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, until a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean and it’s lightly golden on top. 
  9. Remove from oven and allow cake to cool in pan for 10 minutes.
  10. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 
  11. Coconut Frosting
  12. Chill a large mixing bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes before starting. If using a stand mixer, chill the bowl, if it’s too large for your freezer chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. 
  13. Remove overnight chilled coconut can from fridge. 
  14. If you’re using a can of coconut whipping cream that’s all solid, scoop out half (200g) into the chilled mixing bowl. If using regular canned coconut cream, only scoop out 200g of the solid cream that has floated to the top, which might be all of the solids, discarding the liquid underneath. 
  15. Beat for a few seconds until its creamy. 
  16. Add maple syrup and vanilla, beat until well combined, fluffy and soft peaks just begin to form, ensuring not to over-beat, scraping down the sides as needed.
  17. Dollop frosting onto cooled cake and gently spread it out.
  18. Sprinkle over shredded coconut. 
  19. Slice, serve and enjoy!
  20. Store in an airtight container, refrigerated, for 3-4 days. 
  • Prep Time: 20min
  • Cook Time: 35min
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Yoshi says

    Hi, the cake looks amazing would love to try but I'm just wondering see if we could use gluten free flour instead ..

    Reply

    • Samantha says

      Hi Yoshi, thank you! If you have a good quality plain all purpose gluten free flour that you have had success with in baked goods, I would suggest that. As I haven't made this cake gluten free myself, I cannot guarantee it will have the same end result. I can only recommend you use a good GF all purpose flour in place of the flour in this recipe, 1:1 ratio so you would use 2 cups for your gluten free flour. Hope that helps 🙂

      Reply

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