A delicious, copycat recipe, this Vegan Suzy Q Cake is a cream-filled devil’s food cake recipe with lots of fluffy, creamy filling. It’s like a Ding Dong snack cake! Just like the snack you used to buy at the store! Just imagine two rich, chocolate cakes with a thick layer of fluffy cream filling in between and topped with more cream filling.
How to Make Vegan Suzy Q Cake
Vegan Hostess Suzy Q Cake recipes are pretty easy to make! Start with heating your oven to 350F. Spray 2 round cake pans with vegetable spray.
In a medium bowl, pour the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Stir to combine.
In a mixing bowl, combine the vegan butter, oil, and sugar and mix on medium speed until smooth. Add remaining wet ingredients and mix again until creamy.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix again until well combined. Pour batter into prepared cake pans.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Once done, remove the cakes from the oven, and set aside to cool for 10 minutes, before inverting onto plates or wire wracks, to cool completely.
For the Suzy Q Cake Filling Recipe
This type of cooked flour frosting is technically referred to as an Ermine Frosting. For this Suzy Q Cake Filling Recipe, combine the milk and flour in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil while stirring. The mixture will thicken. Once it’s very thick, transfer to a lidded container, then cover and refrigerate until completely cool.
Note: Don’t get too worried if lumps form in this mixture. You can always run it through a food processor to break up any lumps.
In a mixing bowl combine the vegetable shortening, sugar, and salt. Beat on high until the sugar is dissolved. Rub a little bit of it between your fingers, if it’s grainy, the sugar has not dissolved yet. This may take several minutes.
Once the sugar is ready, add the vanilla and the cooled flour mixture, beating until smooth and creamy.
Spoon about half of the fluffy filling over the bottom cake, spreading evenly across the top. Then place the second cake on top of that. Spread the remaining fluffy filling evenly over the top cake.
Snack Cakes That Aren’t Vegetarian
I like understanding about the names of the dishes I cook. This recipe is no exception.
Suzy Q. Who is she? Why did Hostess name a snack cake after her? Why only chocolate and banana? Why not peanut butter cream filling (doesn’t every popular snack food use peanut butter at one time or another)?
Well, to be honest, I gave up a lot of these questions once I became vegetarian. What’s the point? It’s not as if I eat Suzy Q Snack Cakes anymore, because the ingredients include beef fat.
Who would ever believe that a snack cake isn’t VEGETARIAN!
A Homemade Suzy Q Cake Recipe
A friend of mine introduced me to this homemade cake she called the Suzy Q. It’s like a grown-up version of the childhood favorite snack cake! She shared the recipe with me and I looked at the ingredients.
Her recipe wasn’t vegan, so I devised a plan to make a vegan version in a tasty kind of way. It was fairly easy to veganize the cake, which is what I think about most cake recipes. Obviously if there are a lot of eggs involved in a cake, it can get a little tricky. But for this cake, it was a matter of figuring out what kind of egg
That’s how this vegan Suzy Q Cake was born!
This recipe requires a mixer to make the frosting so light and fluffy, but it’s definitely worth it!
Origins of the Name
Of course, now that the vegan Suzy Q cake had returned to my repertoire, I was back to pondering the origins of the name. Where does the name Suzy Q come from? Well, according to the Hostess site itself, “Suzy Q is the name of a popular dance step, a song, a recording artist and a common nickname.”
And just as life mimics art, one of the company’s vice presidents had a daughter named Suzy Q. It makes sense then, that the cream-filled devil’s food cake invented in 1961 was named after her.
Adapting this Vegan Suzy Q Cake
Here’s the part where I apologize if you came here looking for a really healthy recipe. I feel the need to reiterate that my goal in creating and posting recipes (or adapting existing ones) is to show how you can be a vegan and still eat really delicious foods.
Sometimes that means uber healthy food, and sometimes it means complete indulgences, like this one. However, if you prefer to make some changes to the recipe, I’m all for it. In fact, I’ll help you get started with this list of suggestions:
- You could skip the fluffy filling and go for a vanilla drizzle, like on my Ginger Pear Cake
- I could totally see adding some peanut butter to that fluffy filling
- If you want to make a Banana Suzy Q, use my Vegan Banana Cake recipe
- You could make these into cupcakes and insert that fluffy filling in the middle and on top
- Make this cake in a 9X13 baking pan and spread the fluffy filling over the top
There you go, lots of ideas to adapt this recipe. However, you slice it, be sure to serve this vegan Suzy Q cake with my Vegan Hot Cocoa. It’s SO good!
I hope you love this recipe as we do! Have you tried it? Be sure and leave a comment and a rating of this recipe below and then take a quick photo and share it with me using #namelymarly on Instagram. I love seeing your creations!
Vegan Suzy Q Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups All-purpose Flour
- ¾ cup Cocoa Powder
- 1½ teaspoons Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 2 cups Sugar
- ½ cup Vegan Butter , softened to room temp
- ¼ cup Vegetable Oil
- 1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
- 2 cups Cold Water
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla
- Fluffy Filling
- ⅓ cup All-purpose Flour
- 1 cup Plant-based Milk
- 1 cup Vegetable Shortening
- 1 cup Granulated Sugar
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 350F. Spray 2 round cake pans with vegetable spray.
- In a medium bowl, pour the the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Stir to combine.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the vegan butter, oil and sugar and mix on medium speed until smooth. Add remaining wet ingredients and mix again until creamy.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix again until well combined. Pour batter into prepared cake pans.
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Once done, remove the cakes from the oven, and set aside to cool for 10 minutes, before inverting onto plates or wire wracks, to cool completely.
- For the Fluffy Filling: Combine the milk and flour in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil while stirring. The mixture will thicken. Once it’s very thick, transfer to a lidded container, then cover and refrigerate until completely cool.
- In a mixing bowl combine the vegetable shortening, sugar, and salt. Beat on high until the sugar is dissolved. Rub a little bit of it between your fingers, if it’s grainy, the sugar has not dissolved yet. This may take several minutes.
- Once the sugar is ready, add the vanilla and the cooled flour mixture, beating until smooth and creamy.
- Spoon about half of the fluffy filling over the bottom cake, spreading evenly across the top. Then place the second cake on top of that. Spread the remaining fluffy filling evenly over the top cake.
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Enjoy!
This looks awesome, thank you for including it on your site, I may have to give it a try!! Have a great day, anne
Thanks, Anne, for your comment and the inspiration!
Oh Marly! You always have the best ideas on what recipes to veganize. This cake does look delicious, and I know it’s probably just as good as the original if not better. Me wants a slice with my coffee right now;)
p.s. beef fat? Icky…!
YUmmmmmyy! Hey I do not always like healthy recipes, so I think I might have to keep this in my to-make tab! I want a slice ASAP! 🙂
I’ve never tried a Hostess Suzy Q cake, but I can tell that yours is infinitely better! Why in the world would there be beef fat in a cake? Insanity! I love the bright blue background that you used for the photos.
Hostess snack cakes have always sort of wigged me out, but I’d happily take the homemade version. The whole idea of the beef fat confirms for me that I don’t ever want the packaged version!!! I’m not vegetarian or vegan but beef fat in a backed good? GROSS!
Your cake looks delicious.
Hostess has quite a few recipes that I’m interested in unpacking…and this was certainly on my list! It is frightening to consider some of the ingredients they pack into their plastic wrapped goods! Thanks for creating/finding such a delicious vegan version. This cake looks moist, rich and too delicious to pass up.
This is the type of recipe I’m always on the lookout for, delicious and healthy for my 2 picky eating sons.
I bet it’s something even the pickiest of eaters should love. Who can’t adore chocolate and cream? It’s all gone now, but I’m still enjoying the memories of that cake!
Oh wow!
And thanks so much for your 100 Thing Challenge comment. Too funny. I hear tell you can ((own)) just 100 things and win the challenge, though!
You don’t have to apologize…I am not here for healthy, lol 🙂 Love the cake 🙂
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Your cake looks delicious! I’m hoping to make it for a friend who is lactose intolerant. Any recipe ideas for a frosting she can eat? Thanks!
Hi Laura – the frosting posted with this recipe is dairy free and so delicious. I highly recommend it. Let me know how it goes!
OMG Marly this looks fantastic! I want a piece! Is that whipped cream you’ve used to layer and top with? Photos are amazing.