Classic Vegan Pound Cake

This Vegan Vanilla Pound Cake is soft, moist and not overly sweet. This classic cake contains no eggs or dairy, and has the most fine buttery, plush and tight crumb!

Everyone needs the perfect pound cake recipe in their back pocket and this one is truly it! If your ideal pound cake is soft, moist, buttery, slightly dense with a plush tight crumb and delicate vanilla flavour that isn’t overly sweet too, then this ones for you.

Pound cakes are traditionally made with (a lot) of butter, eggs, sugar and flour. It relies a lot on that flavour from the butter and structure from the eggs, but with the right ingredients can be made eggless and dairy free.

Vegan pound cake ingredients

• Soy milk: Or any plant based milk
• Soft tofu: Patted dry. I use the ones packed in water that comes in blocks of 4.
• Lemon juice: Or vinegar, this ‘tenderizes’ the cake
• Cake flour: Makes the cake softer and fluffier. You can use all purpose flour, but the texture will change (see below).
• Corn starch: Extra corn starch makes this cake extremely plush, but can be omitted and substituted with more cake flour.
• Almond flour: as with many of my cakes, I love adding almond flour as it adds butteriness to the cake
• Granulated white sugar
• Non-dairy butter: use a high quality vegan block butter for best results (I use PC brand)

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature (18-21 C), or the batter will split!

The Inspiration

I recently discovered the method of reverse creaming through one of my favourite baking blogs, The Pancake Princess. I LOVE her blog! It’s different in the sense that she compares a bunch of popular recipes and methods, and breaks them all down. I love baking and food science, so love reading all about it.

I loved how Sohla’s and Baking Sense’s pound cake looked, it was my ideal looking pound cake with a plush and tight crumb. But Baking Sense’s caught my attention because of the method of reverse creaming I haven’t had too much experience with before. Although her recipe uses dairy and eggs, I wanted to experiment if it would have the same effect for an eggless and dairy free pound cake. The results after many rounds of tinkering with ingredients based off this lemon blueberry cake: a soft, tender and moist pound cake with a plush tight crumb that isn’t too sweet! The top also gets nice and crispy, like the edges around a perfect chocolate chip cookie.

What is reverse creaming method for cakes?

Typical cake batters usually follow the traditional creaming method: creaming together butter and sugar, then gradually adding wet and dry ingredients.

However, in this recipe, we’re taking a different approach using the reverse creaming method. We start by blending the dry ingredients and then incorporate softened butter, followed by the remaining wet ingredients.

When the soft butter blends with the dry mix, it coats the flour in fat. This coating impedes the gluten-forming process that typically occurs when flour meets wet ingredients. Gluten strands usually bind together swiftly in the presence of moisture, creating structure and elasticity in the cake.

By coating the flour and slowing down this gluten formation, the result is a cake with an exceptionally plush and tender crumb. This method works wonders, especially for rich cakes like pound cakes, yielding a dense yet airy texture that’s incredibly delicious.

How to make vegan pound cake (reverse creaming)

Before starting anything, ensure your ingredients are PROPER TEMPERATURE. This step is so important, and often overlooked. I recommend the butter to be 68-72 F (20-22 C) and the blended tofu mixture to be about (86-90 F) 30-32 C.

1. Blend: the non dairy milk, tofu, lemon juice and vanilla. This mixture replaced the eggs and dairy ingredients in traditional pound cake recipes.
2. Sift: dry ingredients to a stand mix.
3. Mix: add butter and mix. Add the tofu mixture in increments and mix. Reference the photos above to ensure the batter looks right. At every stage, the batter should not look grainy or split.
4. Bake: transfer to prepared pan and bake until internal temperature reached 195 – 200 F.

If using a hand mixer, it may take a few more seconds to mix everything together. Go by visuals!

I actually failed the first few times making it, not because of the ingredients but rather the method. You can see from above, the dramatic difference based on the temperature of the ingredients. Cold ingredients results in a split batter, making a stodgy cake.

Next, under or over beating batter. You can’t really tell from the photos, but the mouthfeel was gummier because either there was no ‘structure’ to the cake (under beating) or over mixed where it felt ‘tough’.

You can see from above, how much of a tighter and softer looking crumb reverse creaming produces. The traditional method isn’t ‘bad’, just different.

Tips for making vegan pound cake

1. Weigh the ingredients: I’ve added US measurements, but I highly recommend using a scale and weighing each ingredients. Cakes are particularly finicky, and as you can see from the photos above, the results differ when tweaking even the smallest amount.
2. Use exact ingredients: I do not recommend making substitutions for this recipe. If you do swap an ingredient, please keep in mind that the texture and flavour will change.
3. Use proper temperature ingredients: incredibly important as using cold ingredients makes it more difficult for the ingredients to combine smoothly. I suggest butter to be about 68-72 F (20-22 C) and the blended tofu mixture to be about (86-90 F) 30-32 C.
4. Mixing the batter: the key to the perfect crumb for this pound cake is all in the mixing. Ensure that the batter is mixed enough, but not over beaten. Take the time to add the tofu mixture in increments. I’ve tested mixing the mixture all at once and it results in stodgy cake.
5. Tastes better the next day: as with many cakes, this pound cake tastes better the next day. I highly recommend wrapping it tightly with cling wrap and placing it into the fridge. It makes it easier to slice and the texture melts in your mouth.

Adjusting for different loaf pans

The loaf pans I use are generally 7 x 3.5 inch or 8 x 4 inches. Below, I’ve given the amounts in % so you can calculate the amount of each depending on the size of pan you have. This amount will make a taller 7 x 3.5 inch cake or shorter 8 x 4 inch cake.

• 68 butter (100%)
• 90 tofu (132.3%)
• 30 soy milk (44.1%)
• 5 ml lemon juice / vinegar (7.3%)
• 10 ml vanilla (14.7%)
• 100 cake flour (147%)
• 14 almond flour (20.5%)
• 7 corn starch (10.2%)
• 4 baking powder (5.8%)
• 1/4 tsp salt (1.8%)
• 112 sugar (164.7%)

Pound Cake Variations

This classic vegan pound cake makes a great base for any kind of pound cake! You can add powdered like matcha or hojicha (adding 1 1/2 tsp of liquid per every 1 tsp of powder). Or add fruits or nuts for studded pound cakes like rum raisin or caramelized pecans.

Storing pound cake

Pound cake keeps and will stays moist for up to 5 days. Tightly wrap with plastic and keep in fridge. It can also frozen. Slice and wrap each slice in cling wrap for up to 1 month.

More pound cakes to love!

• black sesame orange loaf cake
• carrot loaf cake
• pomelo pound cake
• yuzu soy caramel pound cake (coming soon)

If you recreate this Vegan Pound Cake recipe let me know how you liked it by leaving a comment and rating below or by tagging me on Instagram @Okonomikitchen, I love seeing all of your tasty recreations!
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