Alternative Foods Oggs have arrived on the shelves in Waitrose and will be appearing in selected Sainsburys from June 5th. You can find out stockists here.

We were unsure which to purchase when we visited our local Waitrose to review for the website but decided that the Zest Lemon Cake (£4.95) seemed like better value for money. £4.25 for 4 mini cakes seemed steep, although the Fantastically Fudgey Delights sounded great. I do like a good Victoria Sponge, too, and it’s been years since I had one. It’s always a bit of a gamble trying out a new product, especially when it appears to be on the expensive side. There is also a Salted Caramel variety but they weren’t on sale in this store.

The cake itself equates to around 6 small wedges. It seemed small once we removed the packaging but I felt happy there was a decent sponge to cream ratio. Thankfully there wasn’t that prevalent taste of coconut as is so frequently the case with vegan desserts. It definitely got a thumbs up, even from our non-vegan family members!

Instead of eggs the binding/raising agent used by Oggs is chickpea water, known as aquafaba. The result is quite impressive compared to other vegan cakes we’ve had in the past. Rather than a dense sponge the aquafaba lends itself to a lighter texture.

We can only hope that products like this become cheaper once they’re available on a wider scale as this will make them more accessible beyond the vegan community. Mr Kipling’s planned entrance into the market (they’re planning to launch a plant-based range soon!) will certainly disrupt and will possibly influence pricing going forward. Alternative Foods egg replacement is also available to use in baking. We didn’t spy that in our Waitrose but believe that it will be on sale in selected Sainsbury’s. 

Have you tried these vegan cakes out yet? Share what you think with our community!