Simple vegan orange cake recipe made with wholewheat flour and ground flax seeds as “egg substitute”. Bursting with fresh orange flavor, this cake is a treat to smell and eat. It filled my whole home with a beautiful orange aroma.
I love baking especially this time of the year when the weather is slightly cold and it is a delightful treat to have a slice of warm cake or cookie with tea and coffee. It is also the time of the year for sharing the warmth and cakes make perfect gifts for friends, family, and strangers.
While I didn’t grow up with a warm oven and smells of fresh bread or cakes wafting through the air, ever since I had my first oven 11 years ago, I’ve come to learn and love using it. I like easy and simple cake recipes for everyday treats. Haven’t really ventured into the world of complicated frostings and fondant wrappings for the cake. The simple carrot cake is probably the most involved cake recipe on the blog just because it has an extra step of slicing the cake into half and then slathering it with homemade frosting!
How to make any cake recipe vegan
This orange cake is a vegan adaptation of the Moroccan Orange cake recipe that I learned during our travels in Marrakech. Two key dairy ingredients in any traditional cake recipe are eggs and butter which can easily be substituted:
Egg Substitute for eggless baking: Replace eggs with flax eggs. 1 large egg can be substituted with 1 tbsp ground flaxseeds mixed with 3 tbsp water. Ever since discovering flax eggs I’ve used them for all eggless baking recipes. They are an excellent egg substitute and also healthier with all the flaxseed benefits!
Butter substitutes for baking: Oil is a perfect 1:1 substitute for butter in baking. I use a light-flavored oil like grape-seed or canola oil and sometimes Olive oil when I am baking bread. You can also substitute part of the butter/oil with applesauce. You can also use coconut oil, walnut oil, and other nut oils but they will add a flavor to your cake so choose accordingly.
In this recipe, I’ve used 100% whole-wheat flour instead of the all-purpose flour and unrefined organic brown sugar instead of castor sugar in the original recipe. The cake is a bit denser and darker because of those two changes and also healthier. If you are looking for vegan or eggless cakes recipe, this recipe is exactly what you need! Instead of orange, you can also try different fruit flavors in the cake.
Vegan Orange Cake
Ingredients (1cup = 240ml; 1tbsp = 15ml; 1tsp = 5ml)
- 3 big oranges
Dry ingredients
- 2 cups whole-wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
- 4 tbsp ground golden flaxseed soaked in 12 tbsp water for 15-20 mins to make flax-eggs
- 1 cup unrefined brown sugar
- ½ cup Canola oil or use any mild-flavored vegetable oil of your preference
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180ºC [360ºF / gas mark 4]. Grease and dust an 8” round cake pan or a 9” bundt cake pan.
- Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) in a bowl and keep aside.
- In another bowl, beat together all the wet ingredients (sugar, flax-eggs, oil, and vanilla extract). Slowly add and mix in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add a third of the mixture, beat together until combined and then add another third and so on.
- Zest the oranges directly on the cake mixture and then juice them in. It is okay if some pulp also gets into the cake mixture but be careful that no skin goes in. Beat together on medium speed until the batter is smooth.
- Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 40-50 mins until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for about 15 mins before taking the cake out from the tin.
Notes
- Nutritional Information is the approximate information for 1 of 8 servings.
- Orange goes great with spicy flavors like cinnamon and nutmeg. Add a dash to the cake batter if you like a spicy kick or add pumpkin spice for some fall flavors.
- The Cake will keep well in the refrigerator for upto a week.
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Really great
Thanks, Torwald!
Are you also exploring vegan baking?
Can I replace flax eggs in recipe with eggs …if so how many eggs ?
Hello Seema,
1 flax egg (1 tbsp flaxseed powder in 3 tbsp water) is a substitute for 1 egg; join this recipe use 4 eggs instead of flax eggs.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for sharing the awesome information. your information going to be very helpful for me. thank you so much.