Recipe: The Easiest Gluten Free & Vegan Fruit Cake with No Added Sugar (2024)

FAQs

What happens when you bake a cake without sugar? ›

Sugar helps cakes stay moist after baking. A completely sugar-free cake will dry out quickly, so wrap cooled cakes in cling film to prevent moisture loss.

Add extra liquid: Gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than regular flour, so you may need to add more liquid to your recipes to compensate. This can help to keep your baked goods moist and prevent them from becoming dry and crumbly.

Add an egg: You could even add an extra egg which will help the cake to rise. However it will also give more moisture so you might need to fiddle with a few more ingredients so the batter isn't too wet. More leavening agent: Gluten-free cakes may need a little more leavening agent.

Vegan cakes are made without dairy products like milk, eggs, or butter. Instead, vegan bakers use plant-based substitutes such as bananas, flax seeds, or dairy-free butters. Gluten-Free cakes, on the other hand, use non-wheat flour to avoid the complex gluten protein present in regular wheat flour.

Swap in Pureed Fruit

Applesauce and mashed bananas can be used in a 1:1 ratio to replace sugar in your recipe. If you're using bananas as a baking substitute, get the ripest ones you can find and blend them so they're smooth before adding.

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour.

Dissolving leaveners in liquid prior to adding to dough will give a better rise to the product. Gluten-free baking at high altitude requires less liquid and either a higher oven temperature or a longer baking time. Start with omitting 2 tablespoons of liquid and increasing the oven temperature by 25° F.

Sugar tenderizes a cake by preventing the gluten from forming. Sugar also holds moisture in the finished product. Sugar crystals cutting into solid fats like butter help form the structure of the product by making small holes which are filled with CO2 when the leavening agents react.

Gluten-free baked goods often benefit from extra liquid to hydrate the flour blends, eliminate grittiness, and achieve a less dense or dry texture. However, it's very important to drive off this extra moisture during baking, or you'll wind up with a gummy texture.

How to tell when gluten-free cake is done? ›

Ultimately, the toothpick test is just one data source to rely upon: with the trio—toothpick, edges, & centre—you can reliably know your gluten-free baked goods are, well, baked! If your toothpick comes out with wet batter on it, your cake definitely needs more time.

A lot of vegan food is naturally gluten free, particularly all fruit and vegetables unless they have been processed. But not all vegan or vegetarian food is gluten free because the cereals that contain gluten – wheat, barley, rye and their derivatives – could be part of a vegan or vegetarian diet.

Just as with traditional cakes, vegan cakes still contain sugar and fat, which are key ingredients for creating that oh-so-satisfying indulgent treat. But they don't usually contain any more or any less of these ingredients than regular cakes.

The chemistry of sugar attracts water molecules, so cutting it out can make your baked goods too tough and dry.

Baking with reduced sugar produces less-sweet treats, of course, but lack of sugar also tends to increase blandness as well. Like salt, sugar is a flavor enhancer. Reduce the sugar in your chocolate chip cookies, and the flavors of butter, chocolate, and vanilla will all be less apparent.

But if you forgot the sugar in this step, all is not lost. Martina shares: “You can add the sugar in at any point during mixing. The resulting cake will still taste great but be slightly dense from the lack of air bubbles.” That may not be a bad thing, though.

Sugar creates texture

Sugar easily binds with water, which accomplishes two main things. 1) It locks in moisture, keeping your baked goods from drying out; and 2) It inhibits the development of gluten which keeps your cookies, cakes and sweet breads softer.