Vegan Pumpkin Cake Roll

4.78 from 9 votes

Want to bake something fancy for your next special occasion? This vegan pumpkin cake roll will be the perfect dessert.

Prep Time3 30

Cook Time15

Chilling Time2

Total Time5 45

Method: Baking

Course: Cakes

Servings: 24 Small Slices

Ingredients

Ingredients for Cake:

¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
¾ cup canned pumpkin puree
⅔ cup white sugar
3 tablespoons coconut oil melted
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup icing sugar

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Filling:

8 ounce non-dairy cream cheese at room temperature
3 tablespoons non-hydrogenated margarine
1 and ½ cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C for 15 minutes. Line the bottom of a 11x15-inch jelly roll pan with parchment paper (this is a must) and lightly grease the sides with oil.
In a small bowl combine together the flour, spices, leavening agents and salt.
In another bowl, cream together the pumpkin and granulated sugar only. Icing sugar is for sprinkling on the towel to roll the cake.
Add the oil and vanilla and mix until blended well.
Stir in half the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture, blending until just mixed. Add the balance flour mix and blend it once again.
Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan, preferably using an offset spatula. The spread batter will be very thin. (See My Notes)
Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Remove the pan out of the oven. Loosen the edges of the cake with a butter knife and invert onto a clean dish towel sprinkled with the icing sugar. Peel of the parchment paper. Roll from the long side of the cake, wrapping it in the towel. Let the cake cool on a cooling rack for at least an hour. Prepare the cream cheese filling meanwhile.

Cream Cheese Filling Recipe:

In a large bowl, cream together the cream cheese and margarine.
Add the icing sugar and vanilla; beat until creamy.
Make sure the cream is firm, but still easy to spread by storing it in the freezer to firm up for 30-60 minutes.

Assembling the Cake:

Unroll the cooled cake and spread the filling throughout the cake.
Re-roll the cake without the towel and wrap the cake roll with plastic wrap.
Cover it again with aluminum foil or the towel itself and store the cake in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.
Store leftover cake, wrapped in the fridge.

Notes

The cake batter was very thick and I found it very difficult to spread it on the pan. So I would suggest 2 things. Grease the pan lightly with oil and then place the parchment paper on top of it so the paper sticks to the pan and does not lift off while trying to spread the batter. The other tip is to add some liquid (milk/water) to get a better consistency and the spreading can be done easily. Care should be taken while spreading the batter, so that the cake will bake evenly throughout. Mine was very thin in one of the sides and a small piece of the cake did rip off but I was able to stick it back and roll it without any difficulty.
My cake roll looked thinner than what was pictured in the book. I think some more icing would have given the body for the cake. Maybe following the icing recipe for this cake would yield more icing than I had from the vegan carrot cake which would have given a thicker and rounder roll.
For those who are wondering if we could use almost a month old cream cheese icing, we can. I had stored it in an air tight container in the fridge and I read that it keeps good for about 3 months. But be sure to check that it does not taste weird. Mine smelled and tasted perfectly fine and so I decided to use it in this cake roll.
Non-vegans can use dairy products wherever applicable.

Taste & Texture

This vegan pumpkin cake roll tasted so much better than what I had expected. The texture was very good too. The canned pumpkin puree gave the cake a very moist texture, so the cake did not dry up even after 3 days in the fridge. Each and every time we had it directly from the fridge the cake was still soft. It was not hard or dry at all.

Nutrition