Swedish Students Develop Vegan, Gluten-free Mud Cake Mix

Noticing that there were no vegan cake mixes available on the Swedish market, a group of engineering students at Lund University in Sweden created a dry mix that only requires the addition of oil and water.

The final product contained no eggs or wheat flour, making it vegan as well as gluten-free – and had lower sugar content. The mix was developed within the framework of a project course in Food Technology. As it is a student project, it is not yet available for sale, but one of the students behind the project, Anna Telfser, believes the product has market potential.

The project included Food Technology, Engineering and Nutrition students JiteshJayakumar, Iliana Karasa, YannickLeinweber, Louise Landin, Emma Malmqvist, Rebecka Olsson, Louise Selga and Anna Telfser.
A major challenge for the students was how to achieve good consistency and taste without using eggs or wheat flour, but also sourcing affordable ingredients suitable for large-scale production, according to a press release form Lung University.

They found it actually required engineering skills down to the molecular level to produce good semi-processed food.

After testing several alternatives, they discovered that the fiber-rich psyllium husk had good binding properties and could replace eggs. They used almond flour and chickpea flour to replace regular flour. When the students toasted the chickpeas, it gave the cake a characteristic, nutty flavor.

“The vegan market is growing, that is obvious. In addition, this product only contains natural ingredients, something for which there is high consumer demand”, Telfer says.