Vegan Marble Pound Cake

Jump to Recipe

This site contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more information, check the Privacy Policy.

“The cousins are coming!”

That is what my toddler has been saying all week. She is so excited to play with her cousins this weekend. We don’t get to see them often as they live in Illinois and we are all beyond excited to get some time with them on the way home from their vacation. I don’t know about y’all but this Auntie likes to have something a little extra special for them while they’re here. My youngest niece is allergic to eggs, so I spent part of the week trying to decide what recipe I had that I could doctor to be safe for her.

I wasn’t having much luck, but a quick Pinterest search brought me to Nicole’s website Dough-Eyed. She does high altitude baking but had a vegan pound cake recipe I thought could work. The base of this cake came from her recipe and then I doctored it to work here at 447 feet above sea level instead of the 5,000 where she lives, plus added some chocolate to it.

So what all will I need?

• all purpose flour
• baking powder
• salt
• butter
• granulated sugar
• silken tofu
• vanilla
• almond milk or regular if you’re going to do a nonvegan variety
• cocoa powder
• water
• Hershey chocolate syrup

Wait a minute… we’re using tofu?

I know that was my reaction too. However, it gives the cake the right consistency that eggs would. I had the pictures loaded and was ready to type up this blog with my first attempt at an egg free marble pound cake that used flax seed and water. However after Eliza and I bit into it and promptly spit it out, I decided maybe we’d give it a try. My first attempt tasted like something that starts with sh and ends with it. Makes me wish we had pigs because they probably would’ve enjoyed it more than my trash can did.

Tofu required some careful reading and then prep work

Everything I read said to buy the silken tofu and to mix it up well before adding it to the batter. It remains really lumpy if you just throw it in the batter. So we beat the snot out of it first thing and set it aside for later. If you’re not feeling that brave or you just don’t need to use tofu, get yourself 4 eggs out to use instead.

First start off with 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp salt in a medium bowl. Whisk them together and set them aside. Oh! Don’t forget to preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Now that you’ve got them ready we need to cream together 1 1/2 cups butter and 3 cups granulated sugar in a large bowl. I used dairy free butter but any salted butter will work just as well. Make sure your butter is soft enough to press your finger down in but not runny.

Now to pull back out that tofu and dump it in

If you’re going the tofu route you will need 1 1/2 cups silken tofu. The recipe said to mix the tofu until the lumps are gone. Mine never completely smoothed out. So I added my tofu and hoped for the best. In the picture below, you can see there are some small lumps but no big huge ones. I have not tried it yet but if you want to use eggs instead I would suggest trying 4-6 eggs. I will update the blog once I have made the egg version to see how many are needed. You also need to mix in 2 tsp vanilla extract at this point too.

Slowly add in the dry ingredients until well combined. Add 1/2 cup almond milk or milk and stir until combined. Remove half of the batter and place in another bowl. To the remaining batter add 1/4 cup almond milk or milk and stir to combine. This batter is done so just set it aside.

It’s chocolate time!

I’ve discovered in my trying of chocolate baking recipes that if you add hot water and cocoa together before putting it in the batter; the cocoa will completely mix in. I used to get so frustrated with my icing recipes because it seemed like the cocoa always left dry cocoa clumps everywhere. In a small bowl, mix together 4 Tablespoons cocoa powder and 4 Tablespoons hot water. It doesn’t have to be boiling hot but the hotter the better. Add this mixture to the half of the batter you removed earlier. Add 1/4 cup Hershey Chocolate Syrup. Then mix this up well. It will be slightly thicker than the other batter and that’s ok.

I wanted to try doing a loaf pound cake. The recipe I tried and threw out was the first time I had done a loaf that it came out perfectly. Normally I’m left with a gooey spot in the middle. I should’ve counted my lucky stars and just done one large bundt. However I’m a gluton for punishment, so I did a small bundt and a loaf pan. You do you and decide what you want to put it in. Just make sure to Crisco the sides well or use one of the sprays that has flour in it.

You are going to plop some from each bowl into what you’re baking in. I used 1/4 cup measures but you can use a spoon, measuring cup, or just your spatula. It’s not going to be pretty. Just go back and forth and plop some vanilla and then some chocolate batter in the pans until all the batter is gone and you have an evenish amount in both pans.

I used the handle of my spoon to swirl the batter, but you can use a fork if you like. The trick is to go back and forth a couple times in each direction and then stop. Too much mixing equals muddy cake and not pretty swirls. You also don’t want to touch the sides or bottom because it may stick. So just swirl carefully.

How long to cook it for?

So the original recipe says 65-70 minutes total. I baked the small bundt for 60 minutes and the loaf for 70 minutes. I was starting to worry that the loaf was going to dry out so I took it out. The bundt was done perfectly and cracked some like typical pound cakes do. The loaf had a smushy part in the middle, but as my sister said there are no eggs so raw batter is ok to eat.

I would suggest cooking in increments and checking it. So plan for an hour and then check it and bake after that in 5-10 minute increments until your toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes and then turn it out of the pan to finish cooling on a wire rack.

The end result was a yummy “Abber safe” cake that was actually very good. I’m not saying I’m going to switch from eggs to tofu, but if you need to make a cake without eggs I highly recommend using tofu. My niece was thrilled she had a yummy dessert made just with her in mind and I was a happy Auntie who was able to spoil her just a little bit. And my other niece was happy to commune with our chickens.