The recipes on this site almost all fall into one of two categories. Many of them I have created on my own from scratch. These are foods I could either not find a vegan version of, or I did not like what was available. Through trial and error I have made recipes such as our vegan oatcakes, or sweet potato gnocchi, of which I am both proud of, and happy to have added to my cook book.
The other recipes on this site are ones that I have adapted from family recipes that I have grown up with and loved all my life. Things like chocolate chip cookies, or biscuits (the best you will ever make), that I have replaced any non vegan ingredients in and tweaked so that they are still the same wonderful flavors I have always known.
This vegan cinnamon loaf recipe is one that falls into the later category. This was one of my favorite things to come home to. One that you knew was there the moment you walked in the door and could smell the mingled scents of baking and cinnamon. The fact that it was commonly permitted as a snack in our health conscious house, even though really it is not far from cake is another reason cinnamon loaf has a warm place in my heart.
Veganizing this recipe was a bit more difficult than some of the others I have done. If the eggs in the original recipe are removed the end product does not come out the same at all. Flax eggs which I do use often did not seem to do the trick. It was not until I was doing research for some idea and I saw apple sauce mentioned that things clicked.
I knew that apple sauce is often suggested as an egg replacement but it is not one that I am fond of using because it too easily adds an apple flavor to the recipe. Especially if more than one egg is being replaced. Seeing it in writing again though brought it to the front of my mind and after thinking about it and recognising that apples and cinnamon go together wonderfully anyway I decided to experiment.
This turned out to be the key to making this recipe work. The veganized cinnamon loaf is now nearly the same as what I ate my whole life growing up. The apple sauce does add a slight apple flavor but as I hoped for it blends with the cinnamon and is mild enough that if you were not looking for it would probably would not notice it in the loaf.
Now without further ado I shall bring you to the recipe. I hope you enjoy this cinnamon loaf as much as I always have.
What you Will Need:
- 2 Cups Flour
- 1 Cup White Sugar
- ½ tsp Salt
- ½ tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ Cup Vegan Margarine (melted)
- 1 Cup Preferred Dairy Free Milk (soured)
- 2 tsp Vanilla
- 6 tbsp Apple Sauce
Topping
- 3 tbsp Brown Sugar
- 1 tbsp Cinnamon
How to Make Vegan Cinnamon Loaf:
Begin by preheating the oven to 350, gently melting the butter, and souring the milk. This way everything will be ready when it is needed. To sour the milk simply add a ½ tsp of lemon juice or vinegar to it and give a little stir.
Next add all of your dry ingredients (not the ones for the topping) to a mixing bowl and combine well.
After this add all of the wet ingredients to a second bowl and mix together.
Make a small depression in the dry ingredients and pour the mixture of wet ingredients into this depression so that all the ingredients are in one bowl. Mix this all together and you should have a lovely batter that will soon become delicious cinnamon loaf.
In a small bowl mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon.
Grease a bread pan and add half of the batter to the pan and spread to that it is settled evenly. Then add half of the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over this batter. Add the rest of the batter on top of this, and then finally cover evenly with the remaining half of the cinnamon and sugar.
Place the pan in the oven and cook for 1 hour. The cinnamon loaf should have risen a bit, be nicely browned, and a toothpick should come out clean if poked into it.
Let this cool for a couple of minutes and then remove it from the pan and place it on a cooling rack for another couple of minutes. Yummy, vegan cinnamon loaf!!
Insider tip: The ends of the cinnamon loaf are the best part, so if you are the one doing the cooking call dibs!
