Vegan cakes of London

I have a compulsion. Any time I see a vegan cake for sale, I feeling compelled to buy it. Testament to my compulsion is that every time I scroll through the pictures on my phone, there are more pictures of cake than of my friends and family. (I know what my friends and family look like, they're always around and I can see them whenever I want, but cake? Cake is but a fleeting thing.)

Even if I don't like the flavour, I still reach for my wallet and decided to take it home. I could try and rationalise why I like buying vegan cake, but I think it's mainly because I really, really like cake.

Case in point: this large slice of Raw Imagination. I saw it in Planet Organic for the slightly eye watering price of £6. Alright, a lot eye-watering. Alright, eyes watering like Niagara Falls.

But I'd never tried it before, and so I swallowed hard and paid up. Luckily, the portion size was pretty generous, and I got two portions out of it. At £3 a portion, that's a bit more affordable. And I was right to snap it up when I saw it as I've not seen this particular cake since, even in Planet Organic! There's some life lesson in there, I reckon.

The disappearance of the Raw Imagination cakes in Planet Organic may be linked to the appearance of Hardihood cakes instead. They're still on the dear side at £4, and the portions are far smaller. Still, I swallowed hard and got the wallet out. Reluctantly.

It was a pretty-looking cake, but there's probably a more emphasis on form rather than function. Hardihood's arse-clenchingly awful slogan is "less vegan, more vogue". Not sure why that's a good thing, but there you go. A perfectly serviceable raw cake, but at £4 for a portion that would be suited to the appetites of Vogue models rather than your average vegan, I might give this one a miss next time round.

More up my street was this vegan brownie from MyDetoxDiet. You might be inclined to point out that the use of Detox in general, and associated with cake in particular, might be an abuse of language as bad as "less vegan, more vogue". Yeah, you grammar pedant, you've got a point. But if you're going to give me a lexicographical headache, I'm going to be more inclined to forgive you if you're making good cake.

MyDetoxDiet's brownie is a bit more like a straight chocolate cake than what you'd think of a brownie (yes, another misuse of language! This post is a nightmare!) but it's tasty, as I'm going to look the other way and recommend that you get yourself down to Greenwich and pick one up for yourself. If you're coeliac, there's a lot of gluten free stuff down there too.

If you're after a more brownie sort of brownie, then get yourself down to Lola's Cupcakes instead. I popped into Topshop on Oxford Street the other day, and found that Lola's has a concession there. I like that. If you're feeling like you're flagging from all your shopping, you can just drop by and get yourself something cakey. When I dropped by, there were not only brownies, but four different vegan cupcakes alongside the omni ones. I've said it before, I've said it again - for a non-vegan business, Lola's sell some really quality vegan cake.

Another omni chain that has been good at embracing vegan food is Le Pain Quotidien. They've got a goodly selection of clearly marked plant-based dishes on its lunch and dinner menus (look for the ones with carrot symbols), and rumour has it their vegan brunch is pretty interesting too.

They don't have a huuuuuuge vegan cake selection, but you can often get yourself a slice of chocolate and pear cake in quite a few of their branches. If you're looking for breakfast cake, there's usually a blueberry muffin to be had too. 

There's a few of the vegan cakes I've been eating recently, but I've only scratched the surface - if you want some good vegan cake in London, go make the acquaintance of Cookies and Scream, Ms Cupcake, Ruby's of London... you get the idea. London, you do good cake.