These quick and easy vegan fairy cakes or cupcakes, use just a few standard ingredients and are so yummy people will never guess they contain no eggs or dairy!
These cakes are easy enough to make with the kids, and use oil blended with vinegar to replace the egg, plus baking powder to help them rise.
They are light and fluffy and melt in the mouth.
Simply mix the dry ingredients together, add the wet ingredients then bake for 20 mins – easy peasy!
Once cool you can decorate them with our simple vegan buttercream icing if you wish, or they are lovely without too.
You can add dried or fresh fruit to add extra flavour.
The trick to getting them to rise, is to make sure you sieve the flour, and only add the wet ingredients to the dry ones when you are ready to put them into the oven, as the raising agents will start to work right away.
Don’t open then oven to check until the timer is up! They should be golden brown on top, and light and springy to the touch. Leave to cool for a few minutes, and then they can be stored in an airtight tin for 3 -4 days (if they last that long!).
Equipment
- 12 hole muffin tin & cake cases
- Large bowl
- Measuring jug
- Wooden spoon
- Wire cooling rack
Ingredients
- 200 ml plant milk we use oat milk
- 1 tbsp white vingegar we use cider vinegar
- 200 g self raising flour
- 200 g caster sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 80 ml plain flavoured oil such as rapeseed or sunflower oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Pre heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan).
- Put 12 cake cases into a 12 hole muffin tin.
- Stir the vinegar into the milk and leave to stand while you prepare the rest of the ingredients (about five minutes).
- Seive the flour, salt and baking powder into a large mixing bowl.
- Add the sugar and stir to mix.
- Add the oil and vanilla extract to the milk.
- Slowly pour the milk into the dry ingedients and stir to mix thorougroly.
- The mixture is quite wet, so it is easiest if you now transfer it to a jug to make it easy to pour into the cake cases.
- Pour the mixture into the cake cases evenly, and not quite full to the top.
- Bake in the centre of the oven for 20 – 25 mins or until golden brown on top. They should spring back to the touch, and a skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean.
- Leave to coll on a wire cooling rack. Then store in an air tight container for 3-4 days.
- If you like, you can ice them with our buttercream icing and decorate.
Success at last with a vegan cake recipe! Thank you!
Could I add vegan chic chips or raisins to this do you know?
I’m so glad the recipe worked for you. Yes you can add dried fruit, choc chips etc to the mix. I recommend adding them to the dry ingredients and stirring to coat in the flour mixture first before adding the wet ingredients, as that prevents them all sticking together in a lump in your batter. Happy baking!
Can these be frozen and how are they are defrosting? Have a party Saturday and want to pre make but worried freshness won’t keep till then?
Hi Lucy, I haven’t tested freezing them myself, but like bread and most cakes, I would think they would freeze just fine for up to a month. Defrost slowly over 24 hours. They should be fine if you make them tomorrow for Saturday though, as long as stored in an air tight tin.
How long in advance could you make these?
Hi Helen, they will keep for 2-3 days in an air tight tin.
want to make some for my grandaughter who is dairy free but can have egg
how many for this recipe
Hi Pauline, I haven’t tried making them with egg, as I dont eat them, but I would think 1-2, depending on size of the egg should be fine.
This is by far, hands down, the best vegan fairy cake recipe ever! It’s so easy, simple and impossible to get wrong. The twelve cakes were devoured in two days!! So light and delicious. Seriously, thank you so much for such a great recipe. I can’t wait to try the other recipes on your site. I had tried vegan lemon meringue from another site which was an unmitigated disaster, almost putting me off baking ever again. But I tried this recipe and it restored my confidence.
Hi Karen, thank you for the lovely comment! I am so glad you enjoyed the recipe and found it easy. They never last long in our house either!
Hi can you use semi skimmed milk
Hi Pauline, this is a vegan recipe so it doesn’t use dairy milk. I guess it should work fine though, but the cakes wouldn’t be suitable for vegans any more.
Just saw semi-skimmed oat milk in the shop, which I havent seen before. So not sure if you were asking about that? If so I haven’t tried it but I think it should work fine. I’ll test!
Can I make this as a big cake instead of fairy cakes.
Hi Grace, I haven’t tried scaling this exact recipe up, so not sure, but it probably would. Let me know if you try it!
We have a recipe for a large vanilla cake that’s very similar though.
Recipe here:
Simple Vegan Vanilla Sponge Cake
can i use veg oil or olive oil
Hi,yes vegetable oil would be fine, but olive oil has a strong flavour that would affect the cakes, so I wouldn’t use that.
Would this recipe mixture work if I added raisins and currants to make Queen Cakes
Hi Denise, yes absolutely! I often make them with sultanas in myself.