Vegan

Vegan Olive Oil Cake

May  6, 2019
5
1 Ratings
Photo by Alexandra Burghardt
  • Prep time 20 minutes
  • Cook time 1 hour
  • Makes 9 inch cake
Author Notes

I adapted Maialino's Olive Oil Cake to be able to make it for my vegan mother - a perfect brunch dessert for Mother's Day! My first go around, I tried subbing out the eggs for ground flax seed, and the milk for coconut milk, which ended up with a greasy dense strange tasting cake. Trying to find a better way to help give the cake some lift without eggs, I swapped the whole milk for vegan buttermilk, aquafaba for the eggs, and lowered the olive oil to one cup. Those did the trick and I ended up with a delicious, pudding-like cake, perfect for a summer dessert or brunch treat! —Alexandra Burghardt

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Ingredients
  • 1 cup almond milk (or other dairy free milk)
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1 cup olive oil
  • 9 tablespoons aquafaba
  • .5 cups orange juice
  • 1 zest of 1 orange
  • 1.25 cups sugar
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • .5 teaspoons baking soda
  • .5 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1.5 teaspoons salt
  • Fruit for topping
Directions
  1. Add the apple cider vinegar to the almond milk and whisk to combine, set aside for 5 minutes to thicken.
  2. Preheat oven to 350 - grease and line a 9 inch cake pan with parchment paper.
  3. Whisk together all the wet ingredients very well - aquafaba, olive oil, orange juice, orange zest, and milk / cider mix. I whisked until foamy.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet - sugar, flour, baking soda and powder, salt. My lazy method is to dump them all on top of the wet, whisk the dry stuff on top a bit to combine, before mixing it all in together.
  5. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake 50-60min, until golden on top and springy to the touch. If it's underbaked it will have a more oily texture so bake it a bit longer than you think.
  6. Let cool in the pan 30 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely before cutting. Top with fruit if desired (always a must in my book!)

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1 Review

Jae Y. October 26, 2019
I really like this recipe- the cake is buttery and moist even though it's vegan and it's very easy to customize to whatever flavor profile you want. I've made it twice and my only changes were to use a few tablespoons of extra auquafaba so that the batter was a touch thicker but otherwise this is a great recipe and very forgiving. I used cardamom and clove for a more fall flavor and topped it with honeyed figs and blackberries most recently and it was a hit. Thanks for posting!