This vegan strawberry sheet cake consists of a fluffy cake layer, a vanilla custard filling, and fresh strawberries. The cake recipe is egg-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, and made with simple pantry ingredients.
Vegan Sheet Cake With Strawberries and Custard
I love strawberry desserts and enjoy them to the fullest during strawberry season, when fresh strawberries are juicy and sweet. Besides my vegan strawberry oatmeal bars, this custard cake is one of my favorite summer cakes! This vegan strawberry cake consists of a fluffy (gluten-free) cake base, a creamy vanilla custard layer, and a fruity strawberry topping with an optional glaze.
The recipe probably couldn’t be easier to whip up and uses simple ingredients. It is also healthier than most sheet cake recipes and doesn’t weigh you down. This fruit cake with custard is the perfect recipe for summer, but can also be enjoyed year-round (with other fruits of your choice).
Since the strawberry cake is vegan, gluten-free, and can be made refined sugar-free, it is also perfect for people with food intolerances.
The Ingredients
Vegan cake layer
Dry ingredients
- Oat flour: To make your own oat flour, you can simply process rolled oats (regular or gluten-free) in a blender or electric coffee/spice grinder.
- Sweetener: You can use organic sugar, Erythritol, birch sugar, etc.
- Rice flour: I used white rice flour. All-purpose flour or spelt flour will probably work as well (if the cake doesn’t need to be gluten-free).
- Baking powder and baking soda: Makes the sponge cake fluffy and gives it some lift.
- Salt
Moist ingredients
- Plant-based milk: Any plant-based milk can be used in this recipe. I prefer canned coconut milk (light version), but almond milk, cashew milk, etc. should work fine too.
- Banana: Instead of half a banana, you could most likely use 1/4 cup (60 g) of applesauce.
- Vegetable oil: You could use nut/seed butter instead of oil to make the recipe oil-free. I would suggest using 1/4 cup (60 g) of nut seed butter (e.g. cashew butter, almond butter, coconut butter…).
- Lemon juice: Alternatively, you can use lime juice.
- Vanilla extract: Or use vanilla bean paste.
Custard layer
- Cornstarch: You can use arrowroot flour instead.
- Plant-based milk of choice
- Sweetener of your choice
- Vanilla
- Turmeric powder (for a slighlty yellow color)
Glaze
- Strawberries
- Cornstarch: You can use arrowroot flour instead
- Sweetener of your choice
How To Make A Vegan Strawberry Sheet Cake
Please check out the easy step-by-step instruction pictures below.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl.
- Pour the blended wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients.
- Stir with a whisk until combined.
- Pour the batter into a lined pan.
- Spread it evenly.
- Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Add all custard ingredients to a saucepan.
- Mix with a whisk.
- Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until the custard thickens.
- Pour the custard over the cooled cake and spread it evenly.
The last step is to top the vegan sheet cake with strawberries and add the glaze on top. The glaze is optional but it’s a nice finish, in my opinion.
How To Store The Strawberry Custard Cake?
I would recommend eating the vanilla custard cake on the same day. It still tastes very delicious, even on day 5 (yes, you can store it up to 5 days in the refrigerator), however, the pudding/ custard layer won’t look as pretty on the next day. But it’s still very tasty.
Please note that custard doesn’t freeze well, so I wouldn’t recommend to freeze the cake.
This Vegan Strawberry Sheet Cake Is:
- Egg-free
- Dairy-free
- Gluten-free
- Healthier than most sheet cakes
- Can be made refined sugar-free
- Easy to make
- Light
- A delicious fruity dessert
- Perfect for the summer
Should you give this vegan strawberry custard cake recipe a try, please leave a comment below and don’t forget to tag me in your Instagram or Facebook post with @elavegan #elavegan because I love to see how your cake turned out!
More Vegan Cake Recipes
Don’t forget to check out my other popular vegan + gluten-free cake recipes:
- Vegan Coconut Cake
- Chocolate Zucchini Cake
- Upside Down Plum Cake
- Vegan Cheesecake Tart
- Vegan Lava Cake
- Baked Cheesecake
- Fruity Cheesecake
Vegan Strawberry Sheet Cake With Custard
Ingredients
Dry Cake Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (150 g) oat flour (gluten-free if needed)
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sweetener of choice (see notes)
- 1/2 cup (80 g) rice flour (or use all-purpose flour)
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 tsp salt
Wet Cake Ingredients
- 2/3 cup (160 ml) plant-based milk (see notes)
- 1/2 ripe (60 g) banana (see notes)
- 3 tbsp (40 g) oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice or lime juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Custard Layer:
- 5 tbsp (40 g) cornstarch or arrowroot flour
- 1 2/3 cup (400 ml) plant-based milk
- 5 tbsp (50 g) granulated sweetener of choice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp ground turmeric (to make it slightly yellow)
Topping/Glaze (optional)
- 16 oz (450 g) strawberries sliced
- 1 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot flour
- 1 tbsp granulated sweetener of choice
- 1 cup of (240 ml) water
Instructions
- I recommend using a kitchen scale for this recipe. Check the step-by-step process shots above in the blog post.
- Preheat oven to 360 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius) and line a rectangular baking pan with parchment paper. Mine measures 10x6x1.5 inches resp. 26x16x4 cm (inside measurements). If your pan is much bigger you should probably double the recipe.
- Mix all dry cake ingredients in a bowl with a whisk.
- Process the wet ingredients in a blender or food processor and pour the mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients.
- Mix with a whisk until just combined. Let the batter rest for about 5 minutes.
- Pour the batter into the lined pan and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool completely. Wash and slice strawberries.
- Make the custard: Add all custard ingredients to a saucepan and mix with a whisk until there are no lumps.
- Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly. Let boil for 30 seconds and turn off the heat.
- Pour the custard over the cake and spread it evenly.
- Add the strawberries on top.
- For the glaze (this step is optional!): Add water, cornstarch, and sweetener to a saucepan and whisk until there are no lumps.
- Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly. The mixture will be cloudy at first but gets clear once it boils. Let boil for 30 seconds and turn off the heat.
- Spoon the mixture on top of the strawberries.
- Transfer the cake to the fridge for at least 60 minutes (better longer) to set.
- Slice and serve alone or with whipped coconut cream. Enjoy!
Notes
- Oat flour: To make your own oat flour, simply process regular oats (or gluten-free oats) in a blender or electric coffee/spice grinder.
- Granulated sweetener: You can use organic sugar, cane sugar, Erythritol, etc.
- Any plant-based milk can be used in this recipe. I prefer to use canned coconut milk (light), however, almond milk, cashew milk, etc. should work fine as well.
- Banana: You can probably also use 1/4 cup of applesauce instead of the mashed banana.
- You can store the cake for up to 5 days in the fridge, however, the pudding/ custard layer won’t look as pretty the next day.
- The ecipe serves 6-8. Nutrition facts are for one serving (calculated with birch sugar).
Nutrition information is an estimate and has been calculated automatically
Equipment
If you are using Pinterest, feel free to pin the following photo:
I don’t use oil so what could I replace it with? Also, would coconut sugar be okay? Thanks Ela!
Try applesauce. And yes, coconut sugar is fine. 🙂
Hi! Do you think I could make this cake in a cake tin? If yes, which size? Thanks 🙂
Hi, yes, I think that should be fine. An 8-inch cake tin should work. 🙂
Hi Ela do you put the custard hot or room temperature..
Hi Ruth, I think it was still warm, but not hot. 🙂
Thank you for your recipe. Looks great. I have only liquid stevia as sweetener, can I omit the granulated sweetener completely and add liquid stevia to taste?
Hi, that probably won’t work because the texture will be different. But you can give it a try and maybe use less plant-based milk.
All of your stuff looks amazing. I’m a follower now! It’s hard to find anything yummy vegan where I am(I’ve been vegan since 15 and I’m 40 now…and will be trying alot that upu jave?
Thank you, Brookelynn! I hope you will like my recipes. 🙂
I am looking forward to trying your recipe. I love Strawberry desserts.
Great! I hope you will like it. 🙂
Love strawberry cake so much ? the perfect Summer Dessert!
Thank you, Bianca! I am glad you also love it. 🙂
I do not have oat flour because I could not find it!! Anything
else I could use for it?
You can make your own oat flour! All you need is oats and a blender or an electric spice/coffee grinder!
The strawberry and custard reminds me of a pie my dad used to make! Love it Ela <3
Aww, great memories, right?! Much love, Ela
What a perfect cake to celebrate the strawberry season with! Love the added custard layer, looks so creamy and delicious! Great recipe dear Ela!
Thank you, Anna! I am so glad you like it. Lots of love.
I am allergic to corn. Is there something you would recommend instead of corn starch?
Maybe potato starch or arrowroot flour but I haven’t tried it out. 🙂
I will try that and let you know. Sounds delicious!
Awesome! ?
I am so excited to try this recipe. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
You are very welcome, Hazel! I hope you will like the recipe. 🙂
Hi, if I want to make this with regular flour can I substitute the oat and rice flour with ewual amounts of wheat flour?
Hi! I never made the recipe with wheat flour because I have a wheat intolerance. It might work really well with wheat flour but you would need to experiment. I would use less plant-based milk first and if the batter is too thick you can still add more. Please report back if you give it a try. 🙂