I’ve recently started making my own soy milk to save on money and waste (my local recycling facility doesn’t accept cartons). It’s quick, easy, and delicious, but what do I do with all of this leftover okara, or soy pulp? Let me show you!

For the full recipe and nutritional information, click here or keep reading!

I won’t go into any detail about how I make the actual milk because I make exactly how Mary of Mary’s Test Kitchen instructs. Here’s her video on how:

I usually make two batches a week, one for milk and one for yogurt (which I’m still working on perfecting and will hopefully blog about soon!). That’s about 3 packed cups of okara a week. This is what it looks like:

As you can see, it’s very soft and grainy, somewhat like a dry ricotta cheese, but the granules are much firmer as they are essentially just moistened raw soybeans. It’s full of protein and fiber, and it would be such a shame to waste it! I’m sure I’ll get around to telling you about lots more recipes for okara, but this was my first successful recipe: lemon cake! Here’s how I make them.

Preheat your oven to 350ºF and grease a mini Bundt pan. Obviously not everyone has one of these pans, so you can use a mini loaf pan, large muffin pan, or even a regular muffin pan. Just adjust your baking time accordingly. It should even work in a regular Bundt pan, but I haven’t tried that.

The flour that I’m using is soy flour which I made by dehydrating okara for about 12 hours in my food dehydrator, and then finely grinding it in a blender. I have also used all-purpose flour for this recipe, but the soy flour not only uses up my overabundance of okara, but also gives the cakes a double-protein punch!

Mix the flour and baking powder in a small bowl, along with the zest of two lemons. I’m using Earth Balance vegan butter as my fat, which has quite a lot of salt in it, but if you’d prefer to use something like coconut oil, you should probably add a bit of salt to the dry ingredients. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the remaining cake ingredients with a hand mixer.

Fold in the dry ingredients and pour the batter evenly into the Bundt molds. For my size of cakes, I baked them for 45 minutes. Again, the length of time you bake them is really up to what kind of pan you use, but you want a toothpick stuck into one of the cakes to come out clean. The tops should be nice and golden, with the edges turning brown.

Allow them to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the lemon icing, take the lemon juice from the three lemons and microwave it for 10 minutes. This is to reduce the liquid while still keeping all of the lemon flavor. You don’t have to do this, of course, and either use fewer lemons or have a thinner glaze. Once the juice cools, simply stir in the powdered sugar and remaining lemon zest. Drizzle the icing onto the cooled cakes, repeating this two or three times, and cover the bowl of icing while allowing the icing on the cakes to harden between drizzles.

This is not only a great way to use up your okara, but also incredibly easy and delicious. These cakes are full of protein and fiber, and while I wrote the nutritional information stating that one cake is a serving size, they can easily be split in half (though honestly, who could possibly do that??). As I mentioned above, you can experiment with different fats such as coconut oil, or different sugars or flours. Instead of lemon, you could turn this into a chocolate cake, a matcha cake, a rum cake, you name it!

I hope you give this recipe a try, and let me know what you think! Are there any other ways you like to use okara? Tell me in the comments!

~M

Lemon Okara Mini Bundt Cakes|Printable Version

Makes 6 cakes
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Cakes:
¼ c ground flaxseed
6 oz water
1 ¼ c soy flour (or the flour of your choice)
2 t baking powder
Zest of 2 lemons
1 ¼ c sugar
8 T vegan butter, melted
1 ¼ c fresh or thawed okara
1 T vanilla extract
½ t salt, if needed

Icing:
1 c powdered sugar
Juice of 3 lemons
Zest of 1 lemon
1 t vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º Mix together flax and water in a small bowl and set aside.
2. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and lemon zest.
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix remaining cake ingredients (including flax mixture) using an electric hand mixer. Fold in dry ingredients until well blended.
4. Divide cake batter between 6 greased mini-Bundt molds. Bake cakes for 40-45 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes, unmold, and cool completely.
5. Mix icing ingredients until smooth. Drizzle over cooled cakes.