I’ve been vegan for 16 years now and for most of that I have been perfecting vegan baking. Before I was vegan, I couldn’t bake a cake to save my life. I tried once and failed, making a big mess with whisks and things.

But the secret to my cake sucess isn’t really down to time and skill and complicated procedures. Most of my recipes infact require not much more than one bowl, a measuring jug and a wooden spoon. Expensive ingredients? No. Quite commonly, the main elements are flour, oil and soya milk.

Some of the cakes you’ll see on the counter at Ground have been baked by myself and various friends over the years, dozens of times. The Banana Bread, for example, is a recipe put together in the 00’s by my inspiring tutor at Viva!, Jane Easton. She taught me everything I know about cooking without animal ingredients.

So here are my top tips to vegan cake success:

1. Select a tried and tested recipe, not one at random from the depths of the world wide web! I’d recommend sourcing one from the Vegan Recipe Club, for example, which I have worked on over the years. Other great resources include; The Minimalist Baker, Domestic Gothess, One Vegan Planet and BBC Good Food.
   
2. Don’t try and convert a vegetarian recipe using eggs, unless you’ve been doing this a while. You’re better off getting comfy with a vegan recipe that you know works, by sourcing one from some of the suggested places above. If you do, educate yourself about the different options for replacing egg, like gram flour, milled flaxseed or mashed banana. NB sometimes you don’t even need to replace egg, not all vegan cake recipes have an alternative in.
   
3. Don’t mix in your wet ingredients into the dry until you’re ready to pop it in the oven. Otherwise the raising agents will start working before the baking starts. And, learn how to properly line a cake tin, or buy tin liners instead (they are a great time saver!)

Helen x

Ground’s Top Three Recommended Vegan Cake Recipes

Vegan Carrot Cake Loaf – Domestic Gothess

Vegan Recipe Club’s Chocolate Brownies

Vegan Biscoff Cake by Dr Oetker