Y’all, I’ve been searching, searching, and SEARCHING for a delicious vegan coffee cake recipe for a looooooooong time. Fail after fail had me wondering, was it even possible? I mean,my favorite chocolate cake recipe EVERis perfect and moist and everything you want in a good cake and just so happens to be vegan, so I knew it HAD to be possible to make an excellent coffee cake as well, but wasn’t finding anything even close to resembling a tasty cake.
That is, until I stumbled acrossIsa Chandra Moskowitz’s recipe for Raspberry Jam Swirl Crumbcake. I’d already fallen in love with her gingerbread cookies, so I had a feeling her coffee cake recipe would be delish. It’s from her out-of-print cookbookVegan Brunch, which I quickly snapped up frommy favorite online used bookstore.
And I quickly got to work making the base recipe (no jam swirl). At first taste, if I’m being honest, it was a little flavorless. BUT—and this is a big, *serious*but—the cake itself was soft and moist, the perfect texture I’d been looking for. All of the other recipes I’d tried had resulted in a slightly rubbery texture which is okay(ish), but greatly pales in comparison to thevarious delicious non-vegan coffee cakesI was used to.
But I could work with it. And work with it I did. Some tweaking here and there, some vegan baking research, reading, andanother great vegan cookbook purchase*, and several coffee cakes later, I’d perfected this vegan coffee cake recipe.
Though it’s not just a coffee cake recipe—it’s a versatile cake recipe in and of itself. I’d use it for anytime I need a yellow cake recipe or for when I’m in the mood for muffins. (One recent vegan muffin recipe had me wondering why I’d even tried something else—which turned out a bit rubbery again, gah!—when I have this perfect cake recipe already in my grabby grabby hands.) I even recently used it to make a vegan version of the mostExtraordinary Lemon Cakeever known to humankind (and the vegan one is even better than the original). That recipe will be coming soon!
It’s also versatile as a coffee cake recipe because you can add fruit, chocolate chips, or jam swirls to the batter to mix things up a bit. (Thanks to Isa for that tip!) Just this morning, in fact, I mixed in frozen raspberries and then topped the batter with a sprinkling of frozen blueberries before I put the topping on, and it was delicious! With the frozen fruit, it did need to cook about 7 minutes longer.
Just a note on the ingredients: I like almond milk best in this recipe. You can absolutely substitute with another non-dairy milk, but the results may be slightly different. Definitely experiment to find your favorite!
Ingredients
Topping
- ⅔c+ 2 T all purpose flour
- ⅔cbrown sugar
- 2teaspoonscinnamon
- ½teaspoonnutmeg
- ¼c+ 1 T coconut oil or vegan butter(add 1/4 teaspoon salt if using coconut oil)
Cake
- 1 ½calmond milk
- 2tablespoonslemon juice
- 1 ⅓csugar
- 1ccanola oil
- 2teaspoonsvanilla
- 2call purpose flour
- 1/2cwhole wheat flour
- 4teaspoonsbaking powder
- 1teaspoonsalt
- ½cflaxmeal(ground flax seeds)
Instructions
-
Preheat oven to 375 F/190 C. Grease and flour a 13 x 9" pan.
-
Combine the milk and lemon juice together, and set aside to curdle.
-
Mix all topping ingredients together in a medium bowl until crumbly.
-
In a large mixing bowl, combine curdled milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Then add all the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Pour cake batter into prepared pan and let it rest for 15 minutesbeforeadding topping.
-
Sprinkle topping evenly over batter, then bake for 35-45 minutes, until a toothpick stuck into the center of the cake comes out clean.
-
Allow the cake to cool for about 15 minutes before serving. Keep in an airtight container or covered in the pan for up to 5 days.
Notes
Nutrition
*The cookbook is an Amazon affiliate link.Thanks!Please see the right sidebar for more info.
