I recently read somewhere that you could use any carbonated beverage to make a boxed cake mix vegan. So I decided to give it a try!

At the store, I picked out cake mix. That's the toughest part, because I wanted one that had decent ingredients. I did some label reading and opted to get a Krusteaz Meyer Lemon Pound Cake Mix. It sounded good! 

I took it home, preheated the oven, got the loaf pan read, and poured the cake mix into the bowl. The only carbonated beverage I had on  hand was my husband's Pepsi, made with real sugar (no high fructose corn syrup). I decided to use that, putting in a half a can so I could see just how much was needed. I mixed it all together well, add just a little more to make sure it was a good consistency, and then popped it into the oven. I baked it 40 minutes and pulled it out to cool.

Once it was cool, I made the drizzle for the top (which is simple), and we were ready to eat it.

It was so good! I can't believe it. The consistency was really good and it tasted delicious. 

I have tried for years (and I do mean years) to replace the ingredients with things like applesauce, flax, egg replacer, etc. Nothing I've tried as had the cake come out as good as this did! I was really surprised. It was really good. 

I wish I had gotten a picture, but I didn't. It pretty much looked like the picture on the box. I had wondered if the brown color from the soda would darken it, but it didn't appear to much. I will definitely use this method again to prepare a vegan boxed cake mix. It's simple and turns out better than all the other things I've tried. Only next time, I'd like to try something like a carbonated water, rather than a soda, but I will use whatever we have on hand that is carbonated.  I used just over a half a can to make this cake, so a mini can would probably be perfect.