It’s finally here…. A recipe for vegan Angel Food Cake that actually works!

Why you’ll love this vegan angel food cake…

It tastes like a real Angel Food Cake!

There are no eggs or dairy in this cake!

It’s sweet, fluffy and airy!

It goes perfectly with vegan whipped cream and fresh berries!

You can even make it gluten-free!

Angel food cake was always my favorite cake as a child and it’s been my mission for nearly 2 decades to make a vegan Angel Food Cake! It is my white whale and I have joked with my family that I will crown myself “The Veganizing Queen” if I can figure it out!

After too many attempts too even count, I have finally un-cracked the code and figured out the right chemistry to make a vegan Angel Food Cake that works!

Note: The taste of this cake is very close to that of the Angel Food cakes I remember. The texture is slightly different, but still very close. I don’t believe that there is any vegan recipe out there that is closer to the real deal than this one.

Why is it so hard to make a vegan Angel Food Cake?

Traditional Angel Food Cake calls for 12 eggs that you beat up into a meringue. It is essentially a meringue with some flour and sugar baked in. It is super light, fluffy and spongy.

Most vegan egg replacers work as a binder to hold your baked goods together and you can use them in place of eggs when a recipe calls for 1-3 eggs, but they do not work to replace something that is mostly egg.

You can use aquafaba (the liquid from a can of beans) as a replacement for egg whites to make the meringue, but it doesn’t have enough protein content to bake like egg whites and will collapse in the baking process.

What goes into a Vegan Angel Food Cake and why?

Aquafaba – (the liquid from a can of chickpeas) This replaces the egg whites in a traditional recipe and beats up into a fluffy meringue

– (the liquid from a can of chickpeas) This replaces the egg whites in a traditional recipe and beats up into a fluffy meringue Cream of Tartar – this helps to break down the protein and stabilize the meringue. You can read more about the chemistry here.

– this helps to break down the protein and stabilize the meringue. Powdered Sugar – to sweeten the cake without weighing it down.

– to sweeten the cake without weighing it down. Vanilla Extract – for flavor.

– for flavor. Garbanzo Bean Flour (aka chickpea flour)- For extra protein added to the meringue to hold it together. *This is essential!

(aka chickpea flour)- For extra protein added to the meringue to hold it together. *This is essential! Flour- you can use white pastry flour or my all-purpose gluten-free flour blend .

Can this vegan Angel food cake be made gluten-free?

The cake is slightly more authentic tasting when made with a gluten flour, but if you need it to be gluten-free, my gluten-free flour blend is the only type of gluten-free flour that will work.

I created this flour blend by default in one of my many attempts to get this recipe to work. I was trying to get a flour with a high amount of protein to bake up like wheat. It worked in this recipe and then I tried it in my other gluten-free baked goods and it has worked perfectly in everything else too.

Note: You must double the amount of garbanzo bean flour when making it gluten-free.

How do you make a vegan Angel Food Cake?