Vegan Korean Bento Cake
This Vegan Korean Bento Cake (also known as a lunchbox cake) is a miniature version of a regular sponge cake, filled with a homemade strawberry jam and topped with vegan white chocolate buttercream. Get the recipe below.
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What are bento cakes?
Korean bento cakes, also known as lunchbox cakes, are adorable mini cakes designed to be enough to serve 1 or 2 people. They are usually between 2 and 4 inches. For my vegan bento cake I use a tin that is 4 inches wide.
They are often decorated with bright, pastel colours, sometimes with floral or fruit designs. Often they are round in shape but they can be heart shaped too – perfect for a Valentines Day gift!
As the name suggests they originated from South Korea.
How do you make a vegan Korean bento cake?
Baking a bento or lunchbox cake is the same as making a regular cake just miniature.
Vegan sponge cake
Making vegan sponge cakes doesn’t have to be hard. In fact making egg-free sponge cakes doesn’t require any weird and wonderful ingredients – just your store cupboard staples. This cake gets its lift from baking powder instead of eggs.
To make the sponge moist we mimic buttermilk by mixing yogurt and apple cider vinegar along with the other wet ingredients (oil, sugar and plant milk). This makes for a really tender crumb.
Vegan strawberry jam
The jam you buy in the supermarket should be vegan but just double check to be safe.
Alternatively make your own jam! Get my strawberry jam recipe here.
Vegan buttercream
Much like the cake, making dairy free buttercream is easy too! We’re so lucky that we have amazing vegan dairy substitutes these days. To make my butter cream I just sub butter for vegan butter…that simple. No other adjustments needed!
But the key to the best buttercream is beating it for longer than you think. You want it to be super pale, creamy and fluffy, not at all grainy.
What specialist items will I need?
To make this Vegan Korean Bento Cake you will need three things you might not already have:
- A 4 inch cake tin or silicone mould
- A 6 inch lunchbox container
- Sandwich paper (though baking paper would also work)
What if I can’t find a 4 inch cake tin?
Your other option is to bake the sponge in a sheet pan then use a 4 inch cookie cutter to cut out the layers. You can find instructions on how to do that in my other miniature cake recipe.
The recipe
Vegan Korean Bento Cake
Equipment
- 3 4 inch baking tins or silicone mould
- 1 6 inch lunchbox / container
- 1 6 inch square of sandwich paper or baking paper
Ingredients
For the cake
- 150 g self raising flour
- 0.5 tsp baking powder
- 75 ml vegetable oil
- 150 g caster sugar
- 150 g vegan yogurt
- 50 ml plant milk
- 0.25 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 0.5 tsp vanilla paste
For the filling
- 4 tbsp vegan strawberry jam
For the icing
- 150 grams vegan butter softened
- 0.5 teaspoon vanilla paste
- 300 grams icing sugar
Instructions
For the cake
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 C / 356 F / gas mark 4 and line your cake tins with baking paper.
- Sift the flour and baking powder. into a large mixing bowl.
- In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the oil, caster sugar, yogurt, milk, apple cider vinegar and vanilla paste.
- Pour into the flour and mix well until combined.
- Pour the cake batter into your tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until they are bouncy to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.
- Once the cakes are ready, allow them to cool completely before decorating.
For the icing
- In a mixing bowl add the softened butter and beat using an electric whisk for 1-2 minutes or until it is smooth and creamy.
- Add the icing sugar and vanilla paste and beat until pale and fluffy.
- Colour your buttercream and divide between piping bags depending on your design.
- Place a small dollop of the buttercream into the centre of you sandwich / baking paper square.
- Add the first layer of the cake, pipe a border of buttercream around the top and then fill with some of the strawberry jam.
- Repeat with each layer until you reach the top.
- Cover the cake in the buttercream and pipe your chosen design.
- Carefully transfer the cake to the lunchbox container and serve!
Nutrition
More vegan cake recipes
That’s right, they’re all vegan.
The cake recipe archive
For the full range of cakes on the blog (big and small!) check out the cake recipe archive.