Making Vegan Birthday Cakes

Note: The non-vegan ingredients in cakes are typically butter, eggs and milk. (Two recipes will follow the animal substitutions).

If you had a favorite "butter cake" recipe in your pre-vegan days, you can probably adapt that. Standard chocolate cakes, yellow cakes, spice cakes and so forth lend themselves well to a vegan version.

Substitutes for Animal Ingredients
White sugar is normally considered vegan, but actually is often whitened with a process that involves the bones of animals. Try other sweeteners when and if you can. Rice syrup is an excellent sweetener for vegans, as is a sweet juice instead of water called for in the recipe. For an even sweeter taste, you could use juice concentrate in the mixture.

For buttermilk, place one tablespoon vinegar in measuring cup and add soy milk as required.

For the eggs, check with your health food store for an egg replacer. Mix your egg replacer with water as the package directs equivalent to the number of eggs required in your cake recipe.

For shortening or butter, use soy margarine. Check the ingredients to be sure there is no whey or other dairy products.

For milk, use soy milk. Most supermarkets carry soy milk these days or you could check a health food store or an Asian store.

If making a traditional cake, where the margarine and sugar are creamed first, add the mixed egg mixture with the last addition of liquid (while adding the flour and liquid near the end of mixing.)

For frosting, use a standard confectioners sugar recipe and substitute soy margarine and soy milk for the animal ingredients. Alternatively, you can use a sugarless apple butter depending on your preferences.

Following are two recipes many vegetarians use successfully while making everyone happy in the process!

Vegan Chocolate Cake

Vegan Vanilla Cake