This Gluten-Free Vegan Orange Pound Cake is easy to make, seriously moist and perfectly fragrant! It's made with plant-based yogurt, which keeps it moist, creates a dense crumb, and adds a delicious tangy flavour. It comes together in one bowl and is refined sugar free. A simple dessert to suit a range of occasions.

This Orange Pound Cake recipe is similar to my Gluten-Free Vegan Orange Drizzle Cake recipe, but just like my Gluten-Free Vegan Lemon Pound Cake recipe, it uses plant-based yogurt in place of plant-based milk.
Tips for baking with oranges
- The orange flavour comes from orange zest and orange juice.
- The orange zest can be replaced with orange extract.
- If using orange zest, make sure to use unwaxed oranges.
- You can either use freshly squeezed orange juice, or orange juice from a carton.
- If you prefer a stronger orange flavour, you can add some orange extract to the cake batter.
How to make this recipe
Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.
- Mix together all the ingredients in a glass mixing bowl.
Tip: Use a measuring jug to measure out the orange juice and plant-based yogurt.
- Transfer the batter into a one-pound loaf tin.
Tip: Make sure to line the loaf tin with greased baking paper - this will make removing the bread from the tin so much easier!
- Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
- Transfer to a cooling rack.
- Leave to cool completely before slicing.
Substitutions you can make
- You can use any type of oil: coconut oil, olive oil or vegetable oil.
- The orange juice can be freshly squeezed or from a carton.
- The orange zest can be replaced with orange extract.
- You can use any type of plant-based yogurt: almond, soy, cashew or coconut yogurt all work well.
- If you can't find plant-based yogurt, you can replace it with any type of plant-based milk, or use an equivalent amount of blended up silken tofu.
- You can use any type of liquid sweetener: maple syrup, agave syrup, brown rice syrup etc.
- You can replace the ground almonds (almond meal) with ground walnuts.
- For a nut-free version: replace the ground almonds (almond meal) with ground sunflower seeds or use 30g (¼ cup) coconut flour instead of 150g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds.
- You can use plain flour, wholemeal (whole wheat) flour or spelt flour instead of the gluten-free flour if you're not gluten-free.
Different flavour alternatives
You can easily customise this recipe by adding ingredients like:
- Poppy seeds - like my Lemon Poppy Seed Bread recipe.
- Blueberries or raspberries - use my Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Cake recipe as a guide for how much fruit to add.
- Dried cranberries.
- Chocolate chips.
How long does this keep for?
This Orange Pound Cake definitely tastes best when fresh, but keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days. It's great reheated in the toaster!
More gluten-free vegan cakes
- Red Velvet Cake
- Tropical Carrot Cake
- Lemon Blueberry Cake
- Orange Cake
- Strawberry Cake
- Vanilla Cake
- Coconut Cake
- Coffee Cake
- Olive Oil Cake
If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I’d really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo @rhiansrecipes #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.
Watch how to make this recipe
Gluten-Free Vegan Orange Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 60 g (¼ cup) coconut oil (or sub olive or vegetable oil)
- 150 ml (â…” cup) unsweetened plant-based yogurt * (I used coconut yogurt but you can use any other plant-based yogurt)
- 60 ml (¼ cup) orange juice (freshly squeezed or from a carton)
- 2 tablespoons orange zest ** (use unwaxed oranges – or sub 2 teaspoons orange extract)
- 10 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other sweetener)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds (almond meal) ***
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) gluten-free flour blend (or sub plain flour if not gluten-free)
- 2 heaped teaspoons baking powder (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
- ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Place the coconut oil in a large bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or in the microwave (skip this step if using any other oil).
- Once melted, add the yogurt to the same bowl along with the orange juice, orange zest, maple syrup, vanilla and ground almonds.
- Sift in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
- Mix well, adding a tiny splash of any plant-based milk if it’s looking too dry.
- Transfer the mixture into a loaf tin lined with greased baking paper (I used a one-pound loaf tin).
- Bake in oven for around 45 minutes until risen and golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out clean.
- Once out the oven, leave to cool completely before cutting.
- Keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days - best reheated in the toaster!
Video
Notes
Disclosure: This posts contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you purchase any of these products, a small percentage will come to me with no extra cost to you! This income will go towards the running of this blog – thank you.
Bett
What are your thoughts on using organic cane sugar or erythritol instead of maple syrup? Which one I would use would depend on the people present at events I'd make this for.
And if you don't mind, what do you think the conversion would be? (Cups of erythritol or organic cane sugar vs. maple syrup.)
ThIs and using Organic Earth Balance would be my only changes.
Rhian Williams
You can swap out the maple syrup in this recipe with the exact same amount of cane sugar and it'll be fine!
I've never used erythritol so can't say, but you can swap it in with the same quantity as you would if swapping in erythritol in place of normal sugar and it'll be fine!
Hope that helps!