East Coast Coffee Cake

Being vegan is tough when it comes to sweets and baked goods. You have to deny a lot of awesome looking stuff out there! Bake sales, pot-lucks, and going over to someone’s house includes a lot of confused people…"but why can’t you eat this?" So, after each time your sweet tooth is denied that succulent treat, you get twice as excited when you CAN eat something. This doesn’t happen a lot though…believe me.

Therefore, I cook a lot of vegan sweets…which is my downfall. I will cook a whole chocolate cake and just keep eating! Nom Nom Nom!
And, my defense is always that I NEVER get to have this stuff.

Nevertheless, I am vegan, I am not a vegan on a strict diet…so I enjoy every bite!

Here’s a tasty dessert from the book Vegan Brunch by Chandra Moskowitz. I don’t own this book, but I was reading it in the bookstore the other day and it looked amazing! This is definitely going to be the next vegan recipe book that I buy.
Coffee cake is so delicious and moist. There was some at the workplace a couple of days ago, and I said “I can make that!”
So, that’s exactly what I did. East Coast Coffee Cake
Ingredients
For the topping:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup canola oil, plus up to 2 Tbs. more if needed

For the cake:
3/4 cup non-dairy milk
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
For serving:
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (optional)

Instructions
Preheat over to 375F. Grease an 8-inch square pan (I used a springform pan). Mix the milk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle.
Make the topping:
Mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Drizzle in canola oil by the tablespoonful. Use your fingers to mix until crumbs form. Alternate mixing and adding canola oil until oil is used and large crumbs have formed. Some of the mixture can still be sandy, but make sure you’ve got mostly large crumbs.
Make the cake:
In a large bowl, mix milk mixture, sugar, canola oil and vanilla. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt, and mix until smooth.
Pour batter into pan.
I put a cup of fresh blueberries on top of the batter.
Evenly sprinkle the topping over the batter and pat down just a bit.

The recipe says bake for 35 to 40 minutes (mine didn't take as long). The cake is done when you can insert a knife into the center and it comes out clean. Let cool for an hour before slicing and serving. Then you can sift the powdered sugar over top after it’s cooled—if you feel like it.
To simulate the caramel topping that you see on some coffee cakes, I just boiled some butter, brown sugar, soy creamer and then added some arrowroot (or cornstarch) at the end. I covered the whole cake with this sweet stuff!
Enjoy :)