A trio of vegan cakes

I love baking cakes. The problem is that I also love eating them and with just the two of us it means we eat an awful lot of cake which is catching up with us, most visibly on our bellies!





One of my favourite pastimes is drinking herbal tea and eating vegan cake, preferably in a quaint tea room like this one http://www.richmondtearooms.com/About-us.aspx







People often think that it is either impossible to make good vegan cake or that it's somehow extra challenging or difficult. In fact, this perception couldn't be more wrong. Vegan cake is just as simple as non-vegan cake to make with the added advantage that you can lick the bowl clean afterwards without the worry of raw egg!! What I've found about vegan versus non-vegan cake is that the egg in non-vegan cakes makes them dry out quickly. All my vegan cakes always come out moist and stay moist for about a week (this is a lie since cakes in our house never last a week. Usually they are eaten within three days of making them!).

 I have never been able to make good sernik (that's cheesecake in Polish in case you didn't know). Even before I went vegan my cheesecakes never came out good. The following recipe worked brilliantly the second time. The first time the main problem was that I over baked the cake and the fat in the cream cheese separated. It wasn't pretty! I also tweaked the recipe the second time. Here it is:

White chocolate and raspberry cheesecake

15 vegan digestive biscuits (I made my own), blitz in a food processor until like fine crumbs
4 tbsp melted vegan margarine
450g firm tofu, drained
450g vegan cream cheese (I used Tofutti)
225g caster sugar
55ml sunflower oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
0.5 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
200g melted vegan white chocolate (I made my own)
85g raspberry jam (I used my own)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease and line a 9 inch springform pan. Mix the cookie crumbs with the melted margarine and lightly press into the prepared pan. Put tofu, cream cheese, sugar, oil, lemon juice, salt, and vanilla in a food processor and blend until smooth. Melt the chocolate in the microwave and add to the cheese mixture and blend again. Take out half a cup of the cheese mixture and pour the rest over the cookie crust. Add the raspberry jam to the cheese mixture in the cup and mix until smooth then pour over the top of the cake and swirl lightly to marble the top of the cheesecake. Bake for 45 minutes then turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven for another 40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Refrigerate overnight before taking out of the pan.

An important note: do not bake for more than 45 minutes even if you think the cake wobbles too much. It will set once out of the oven and in the fridge, trust me.

Versunkener Apfelkuchen (German apple cake in case you needed a translation)

1/2 cup vegan margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup applesauce (I used cider applesauce)
2 tbsp soy milk
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder

Topping:
3 apples, peeled and cut into slices
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease and line a 9 inch springform pan. Mix the butter and sugar in a large bowl, add applesauce and milk. Add flour and baking powder and stir well into a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the pan and arrange apple slices in a circle on top of the cake. Mix together the 3 topping ingredients and sprinkle over the cake. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Wait for 15 minutes before unmolding from the cake pan.




Chocolate cupcakes

This is my favourite recipe because it works well every time and it's so quick and easy. Also, people love these delicious little cakes :)

1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt

Frosting:
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp soy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp orange extract


Preheat the oven to 180C. Whisk together the milk and vinegar and leave to curdle for a few minutes. Add the sugar, oil and the two extracts. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cocoa powder. Add to the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour into 12 silicone cupcake molds and bake for 20 minutes. Whilst the cupcakes are cooling mix all the frosting ingredients together until smooth and pipe over the top of the cakes.

 Chocolate cupcake with lapsang souchong tea. I have recently become a bit obsessed with lapsang souchong tea. The smokiness of that tea is tantalising and, as my friend would put it, it makes me ebullient.