Book Club Tuesday: Plantcakes

My year has been bookended by Lyndsay Sung’s cookbooks and, after sharing her first book (Coco Cake Land) in February, I feel the exact same about her latest book, Plantcakes: her books are too good not to share! Coco Cake Land was a book that I had bought based on a recommendation from a friend and I immediately loved Sung’s playful approach to cake decorating. At the time, I referred to her style as “choose your own adventure” because the book offered instructions on decorating and bakers would choose a recipe for the cake base, so home bakers could mix-and-match. Sung’s style shows just how much she loves cake and the people she bakes them for! In her latest book, she’s expanded her focus to include baking beautiful and joyful vegan cakes. Inspired by her family and friends, Sung tells us in the introduction: “Plantcakes falls within the same non-judgmental and encouraging parameters in which plant-based eating was introduced to me.” Plantcakes is meant for all bakers regardless of where they fall on the vegan baking spectrum because Sung offers the same easy, delicious, and joyful cake recipes that have become her signature.

Baking from Plantcakes means using vegan alternatives to dairy and eggs, which Sung has outlined in her beginning section Plant-Based Ingredients. If you’re new to plant-based baking, Sung explains the different options for alternatives to butter, yogurt, milk, eggs (she uses the vegan versions, coconut milk, vegetable shortening, aquafaba, etc.) While I normally don’t use plant-based recipes, I had no troubles finding the ingredients in my local grocery store and, I found that they weren’t more expensive than their non-plant-based counterparts. She uses the opening of the book to outline basics of cake decorating, piping frosting, useful tools as well as crucial tips. The recipes are organized into 7 chapters: 1) Snacking Cakes for Emotional Eating (+ Just Regular Eating), 2) “A Little More Casual” Two-Layer Cakes, 3) Party Animal Three-Layer Cakes, 4) Buttercream Dreams (Fillings + Frostings + One Very Berry Quick Jam), 5) Fanciful Wildcard Cakes (Truly Outrageous), 6) Fancy Sheet Cakes (To Feed a Crowd), and 7) Party Time (or Everyday) Cupcakes. I really appreciate the fact there are cakes for any/every occasion and skill level. Since I am between the big occasions, I found myself gravitating towards baking up her snacking cakes (which are great for playdates, with an afternoon coffee, etc.).

A fact that cannot be overstated: cake for breakfast is the best kind of breakfast! Sung’s recipe for Blackberry Maple Breakfast Cake with Maple Coconut Whipped Cream is such a delight! The batter is made using a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat flours, which give the cake such a lovely nutty flavour and dense, moist crumb. I used some frozen blackberries I had on hand, and the blackberries were a sweet/tart jammy addition to each bite of cake. This recipe is one of my favourites from the book! Since I didn’t have any coconut cream, I ended up topping each slice with a generous dollop of vanilla plant-based yogurt instead.

Since I am a huge fan of Nordic Ware cake pans, when I made the recipe for Cozy Pumpkin Pie Cake, I used the Nordic Ware Autumn Cakelet Pan instead of an 8-inch square cake pan (the cakelet pan has a 3-cup capacity which accommodated the amount of batter the recipe made). As you can see from the photo, those pumpkin pie cakelets are pretty cute! They were the perfect size to send in my daughter’s lunch too. To keep the designs visible, I sprinkled powdered sugar on each cakelet in lieu of topping with coconut whipped cream.

One of my daughter’s friends adores apple desserts, so when she came over to play one afternoon, I made sure to bake up Sung’s recipe for Apple Olive Oil Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. The girls enjoyed it so much that I sent the leftover cake home and it continued to garner rave reviews! What makes this cake so special is the classic combination of autumn flavours: apples, maple syrup, cinnamon, and brown sugar!

Part of the sweetness of Sung’s recipes are the stories and connections she shares in the recipe notes – baking her recipe for Vanilla Cake I thought about Sung’s Poh Poh (the recipe’s originator). She would bake the cake to include in tender care packages she would give to Sung during her first year away at university. I am a big fan of baking up a little love to share with people, so when I made this cake, I boxed up a few slices that I dropped off at a neighbour’s house. Keeping up connections and showing care for our friends and family through food is a wonderful way to pay tribute to people like Poh Poh who kept their loved ones nourished with recipes like this one. Instead of making the Coffee Icing Glaze (my neighbours have young kids), I tried making the Fudgy Caramel Frosting. For some reason (I think I didn’t cook the frosting long enough), the frosting didn’t set but even so, it still tasted delicious, and my neighbours really enjoyed it!

Plantcakes: Fancy + Everyday Vegan Cakes for Everyone is such a joyful, inspiring book! As with her other work, Lyndsay Sung continues to delight home bakers with recipes that look beautiful and taste delicious (that just happen to be vegan!). I appreciated learning more about making plant-based cakes and I found many recipes to add to my cake repertoire.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Appetite by Random House for providing me with a free, review copy of this book. I did not receive monetary compensation for my post, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Any links provided are intended purely for informational purposes.

Apple Olive Oil Cake w/ Maple “Cream Cheese Frosting”, p. 42 (frosting, p. 140)

Apple Olive Oil Cake w/ Maple “Cream Cheese Frosting”, p. 42 (frosting, p. 140)