Learn how to make light and fluffy vegan pound cake with delicious lemon custard cream. You’ll need only wholesome ingredients, 15 minutes of your time, 2 small and one large bowl, a regular or immersion blender, and a loaf pan.
What I love about this recipe:
- It’s easy to make.
- Great for batch-cooking.
- Has short active prep time.
- Fills your home with heavenly flavours.
This vegan lemon pound cake is:
- Gluten-free
- Oil-Free
- Soy-free
- Candida diet friendly
- Low glycemic diet friendly (if you use sweetener with low GL)
- Refined sugar free
Table of contents
How to Make Gluten-Free Vegan Pound Cake
Traditionally, you would make a pound cake with a pound each of butter, eggs, flour, and sugar. Obviously, we will not do that! Instead, we will get the result of a light and fluffy vegan pound cake using whole food plant-based ingredients.
Dry Ingredients
Gluten-free oat flour is an awesome alternative to regular flours. In case you can’t use oat flour for some reason, check out the substitution tips below.
Next up is defatted almond flour that contains 10-20% of fats. I used almond flour that’s made of unblanched almonds and is therefore slightly brown in colour. Also, my flour doesn’t have a fine but a medium grind. It’s fair to say that it’s on the coarse side.
I added turmeric solely for aesthetic purposes. In other words, it gives a beautiful yellow hue to this vegan pound cake.
Either orange or lemon peel powder give a nice hint of citrus that can’t be underestimated.
Since I was a child, I’ve always loved poppy seeds! In my opinion they pair especially well with citrus flavour. Until this day, I remember the poppy seed Bundt cake that my mom used to make. So, here’s my version of it! Now, to make this vegan pound cake light and fluffy, you can use either baking powder or baking soda. My personal observations steer towards the latter as its rising capabilities are simply better.
The Wet Mixture Ingredients
Peanut butter is the butter in my pound cake, and it does make a good job! Besides, it’s a wholesome ingredient and tastes sweet per se!
Applesauce is a delicious and clever way in vegan baking to make your treats a little lighter. I used my homemade applesauce in this recipe.
Next, for the liquid ingredient I went for unsweetened oat milk.
Flax egg replaces chicken eggs and does so wonderfully. You simply combine ground flaxseeds and water to get a flax egg – all the quantities and instructions are on the recipe card below.
I sweetened my gluten-free vegan pound cake with date sugar, as it is closest to whole food among sweeteners. I decided to add date sugar in the wet mixture as it dissolves better this way. Finally, there’s apple cider vinegar to aid baking soda do its job. Believe me, if you forget the acidic agent, your pound cake will not rise!
Substitution Tips
Should you be intolerant to avenin in oats, use any other gluten-free flour or flour mix e.g., teff flour, raw buckwheat flour, or gluten-free all-purpose flour.
In theory, you could substitute almond meal for defatted almond flour. However, bear in mind that the fat content of your pound cake would increase significantly. Also, as defatted almond flour is drier, it presumably absorbs a bit more liquid than regular almond meal.
You can use freshly grated orange or lemon zest instead of powders.
Feel free to use any preferred nut butter instead of peanut butter e.g., almond butter, hazelnut butter, cashew butter.
Any plant milk will do well in this recipe – soymilk, almond milk, cashew milk, hazelnut milk, hemp milk, walnut milk, millet milk, quinoa milk, rice milk, buckwheat milk etc.
As for the sweetener, any preferred dry or granulated sweetener will do. For example, coconut sugar, erythritol, or xylitol. Feel free to use lemon juice instead of apple cider vinegar.
The Process
Briefly, let’s go through the process of making this vegan pound cake.
We start by preparing flax eggs by combining ground flaxseeds with water in a small bowl. You set it aside while you attend to the next steps.
Next, in a small bowl, make vegan buttermilk by mixing oat milk and apple cider vinegar. Let it sit until you start making the wet mixture.
Then, in a large mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients for the dry mixture.
Next, pour all the wet mixture ingredients (along with the flax eggs and vegan buttermilk) into a blender or a beaker and process until smooth. Alternatively, you can prepare the wet mixture in a medium bowl as well. However, make sure your peanut butter is at room temperature. First, mix nut butter, applesauce, and flax eggs. Then add date sugar and finally vegan buttermilk.
Now, pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry and mix well with spatula until everything is well incorporated.
Transfer the batter into the prepared loaf pan or tin (lined with parchment paper, about 25x9cm, 8.5×4.4inch) and bake at 175°C (350°F) for 60-65 minutes until golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean or almost clean. Remove from oven and lift the bread out of the tin.
Place it to cool on a cooling rack (wire rack) or on folded kitchen paper on a chopping board. Let the pound cake cool completely before slicing or it’d deflate and end up being less fluffy.
How to Store a Vegan Pound Cake
For 2-3 days on kitchen counter: I’d recommend wrapping the pound cake into the same parchment paper you used for baking and sticking it into a plastic bag leaving one end open. This way you preserve the moistness of the cake.
For up to 5 days: slice the cake and store in a container in the fridge.
For longer keeping, freeze the individual slices. Heat up in a microwave (for soft result) or a regular oven (for crispy slices) whenever necessary.
How to Serve
I love to serve this vegan pound cake with my healthy vegan lemon custard cream. However, store-bought or homemade applesauce, plant-based vanilla yogurt, or plant-based ice-cream work equally well.
In case you are more of a visual learner, enjoy the below tutorial video on how to make this vegan pound cake!
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How to Make Oil-Free Vegan Pound Cake [Video]
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 20 slices 1x
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Learn how to make light and fluffy vegan pound cake with delicious lemon custard cream. You’ll need only wholesome ingredients, 15 minutes of your time, 2 small and one large bowl, a regular or immersion blender, and a loaf pan.
Ingredients
Wet mixture:
- 150g (5.3oz or ½ cup + 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp.) peanut butter
- 150g (5.3oz or ½ cup + 2 tbsps.) applesauce
- 160g (5.6oz or ½ cup + 2½ tbsps.) oat milk
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- ½ cup + 1 tbsp. erythritol (date sugar for Plantricious version)
- 3 tbsps. ground flaxseeds + 6 tbsps. water
Dry mixture:
- 100g (3.5oz or ¾ cup + 1 tbsp.) oat flour
- 140g (4.9oz or 1 cup + 1½ tbsps.) defatted almond flour
- 1 tsp. turmeric
- 2 tbsps. poppy seeds
- 1½ tbsp. orange or lemon peel powder
- ½ tsp. Himalayan salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda (3–4 tsps. low sodium baking powder for Plantricious version)
Instructions
- Start by combining 3 tbsps. of ground flaxseeds with 6 tbsps. of water in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Then, in a small bowl, prepare vegan buttermilk by combining oat milk and apple cider vinegar. Set aside.
- Next, in a large mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients for the dry mixture.
- Then, pour all the wet mixture ingredients (along with the flax eggs and vegan buttermilk) into a blender or a beaker and process until smooth.
- Now, pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry and mix well with spatula until everything is well incorporated. Alternatively, you can prepare the wet mixture in a medium bowl as well. However, make sure your peanut butter is at room temperature. First, mix nut butter, applesauce, and flax eggs. Then add date sugar and finally vegan buttermilk.
- Transfer the batter into the prepared loaf pan or tin (lined with parchment paper, about 25x9cm, 8.5×4.4inch) and bake at 175°C (350°F) for 60-65 minutes until golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean or almost clean. Remove from oven and lift the bread out of the tin. Place it to cool on a cooling rack (wire rack) or on folded kitchen paper on a chopping board.
- Let the pound cake cool completely before slicing or it’d deflate and end up being less fluffy.
- Serve with my healthy lemon custard cream, applesauce, vanilla yogurt, or plant-based ice cream.
Notes
When baking, always prefer weight over volume measurements, especially when it comes to dry ingredients.
Should you be intolerant to avenin in oats, use any other gluten-free flour or flour mix e.g., teff flour, raw buckwheat flour.
In theory, you could substitute almond meal for defatted almond flour.
You can use 4 tablespoons of freshly grated orange or lemon zest instead of powders.
Feel free to use any preferred nut butter instead of peanut butter e.g., almond butter, hazelnut butter, cashew butter.
Any plant milk will do well in this recipe – soymilk, almond milk, cashew milk, hazelnut milk, hemp milk, walnut milk, millet milk, quinoa milk, rice milk, buckwheat milk etc.
As for the sweetener, any preferred dry or granulated sweetener will do e.g., coconut sugar. Low glycemic and Candida diet friendly options include erythritol and xylitol.
Feel free to use lemon juice instead of apple cider vinegar.
Nutritional info for Plantricious version (1 slice, with date sugar and baking powder): 125.6 kcal, 10.6g carbohydrates (33.8% of kcal), 6g fats (43% of kcal), 1g saturated fats, 5.7g protein (18% of kcal), 3.1g fibre, and 61.8mg sodium.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 65
- Category: Desserts
- Method: Oven
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 105 kcal
- Sodium: 123.8mg
- Fat: 5.9g
- Saturated Fat: 0.9g
- Carbohydrates: 5.8g
- Fiber: 3.1g
- Protein: 5.6g
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I’m low FODMAP and dont tolerate apples, date or erythritol. Could I sub maple syrup?
Hi Vikki! You could substitute applesauce with unripe banana puree. As far as the sweetener is concerned, feel free to use maple syrup but maybe add a little less oat milk as syrup is liquid. Alternatively, use raw cane sugar. I hope this helps!