Tag Archive | cake

♥ Lemon and poppy seed cupcakes

Feb17

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Have you ever booked a weekend away and picked the hotel purely on the basis that it was in the same city as a café that sells vegan cupcakes…. only to find out that the café was sold 2 months’ earlier and now isn’t even vegetarian?!

That was my valentine’s weekend, haha! Aww well, we still had a lovely time 🙂

Anyway, hubby bought me a silicone cupcake kit for Christmas so I decided to christen it by making lemon and poppy seed cupcakes. I loosely based the recipe on this non-vegan version and I have to admit that I was pretty smug about the result! Seriously soft and fluffy but delightfully tangy and not too sweet… I ate 7 out of 12, whoops! And my favourite part? They rose! It might be pancake day today but these beauties were most definitely NOT vertically challenged!

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Super fluffy! ♥

Lemon and poppy seed cupcakes:

Ingredients (Makes 12):

  • 13/4  x cups self-raising flour
  • 1 x tbsp. slightly toasted poppy seeds*
  • 3/4  x cup sugar
  • Zest of 2 un-waxed lemons
  • 3 x tsp No-Egg  in 6 x tbsp. water  (whisked together until white and frothy)
  • 1 x tsp baking powder
  • 1/3 x cup soya yoghurt (or any other dairy-free variety)
  • ½ x cup vegan friendly marg
  • 1/3 x cup soya milk (or any other dairy-free variety)
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 12 x cupcake cases ( I used silicone).

*(Toast in a dry frying pan on a medium heat for 1 – 2 mins)

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 180oC.
  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, zest (reserve a quarter for decoration), poppy seeds and baking powder.
  3. In another bowl, electric-whisk up the No-Egg and water before adding the marg, followed by the sugar, yoghurt, milk and finally the lemon juice.
  4. A spoonful at a time, add the dry ingredients into the wet and gently fold in. A silicone spatula is great for this
  5. Using a couple of teaspoons (one for scooping, one for scraping), distribute the mixture evenly between the 12 cupcake cases.
  6. Put in the oven and bake for 15 mins or until golden brown. A skewer should come out clean when inserted into the centre of each.
  7. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

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These cakes are so tasty that they don’t really need icing. However, just to pretty them up, I added a small swirl of the following onto each and topped with some extra poppy seeds and a sprinkling of zest:

Icing

Ingredients:

  • 4 x tbsp. icing sugar
  • 1/3 x cup vegan friendly marg
  • ½ x cup vegan cream cheese (I used Violife)
  • Juice of ½ lemon


Method:

  1. Whizz together the marg, cream cheese and lemon juice using an electric mixer.
  2. Whizz in the icing sugar, cover and pop in the fridge for 20 mins or so.
  3. Once the cupcakes are COMPLETELY COOLED you can either spoon or pipe a small amount of icing onto each cake.

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Perfect with a cup of tea!

Flash-Gordonette…X

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♥ Chocolate and Lotus Spread cinnamon cake

Aug12

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It’s my birthday at the end of the month so I’ve been trialing a few cakes. I want to try and persuade my work colleagues that vegans don’t just live off dust 😉

I’d heard very good things about the new Lotus Biscoff Spread via the Vegan Groups on Facebook, so when I saw a jar in the shops I couldn’t resist. Facebook was right, this stuff is gorrrrrgeous! So gorgeous in fact that I had to invent a cake to put it into. This one is definitely a contender for the birthday bake-off!

Chocolate and Lotus Spread cinnamon cake:

Ingredients:

  • ¾ x cup vegan marg
  • ¾ x cup sugar
  • 3 x tsp “No Egg” in 6 tbsp. water
  • 4 x tbsp. soya milk
  • 1 x tsp cider vinegar
  • 1 1/3 x cups self-raising flour
  • 1 x tsp baking powder
  • 2 x tsp cinnamon
  • 2 x tbsp. Lotus Biscoff spread (plus extra for decorating)
  • 2 x tbsp. Vegan friendly chocolate spread (have a Google search if you don’t already have a favourite brand!)

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180oC
  2. Put the marg, sugar, No Egg, soya milk and cider vinegar into a bowl and whizz up until a pale batter is formed (it might look slightly “curdled” but don’t worry).
  3. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the batter a spoonful at a time and fold in until thick and thoroughly mixed.
  5. Pour half the mixture into a well-greased baking pan. Dollop in blobs of the Lotus Spread and chocolate spread. Pour the rest of the mixture on top and swizzle around using a skewer.
  6. Bake for 35 – 45 minutes, depending on the dimensions of your tin. A skewer will come out of the centre of the cake clean once cooked. If the outside of the cake is browning too fast, wrap in foil.
  7. Allow to cool in the tin for 10mins before turning out onto a wire rack.
  8. Once completely cool, you can decorate. Using a butter knife, I alternated blobs of Lotus and chocolate spread to make a pretty pattern.

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My favorite part of this cake is the slightly chewy crust and of course the Lotus – chocolate spread topping. Enjoy!

Flash-Gordonette…x

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♥ Vegan potica

Apr21

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For those who haven’t come across it, potica is a traditional festive dessert in Slovenia. It’s a yeasty bready cake with a delicious nutty-sweet filling.
 
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(Don’t you just love my friend’s beeeeautiful cucumber pot?!)
 
A Slovenian contact sent me a recipe at Christmas time but I never had time to veganise it (potica typically contains a lot of eggs, milk and honey). However for Easter I decided to pull my finger out my arse and actually get it made. The following recipe makes a fairly large cake, so my BFF, her fella, my hubby, my Mum and my Dad were all subjected to a BIG serving over the Bank Holiday weekend. They all survived so I figured it was worth a blog!
 
Vegan Potica recipe:
Dough
Ingredients:
 
  • (Yeast mix)
  • 200ml soya milk
  • 50ml hot water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 14g fast active yeast
  • 150g vegan marg
  • 2 tbsp rum
  • 2 tsp vanilla essence
  • Peel of ½ orange and ½ lemon
  • 80g sugar
  • 600g plain white flour
 
Method:
  1. In a jug, add the hot water to the soya milk. Stir in 2 tsp of sugar and the salt. Sprinkle the yeast over the top and leave in a warm place for 10 – 15 minutes until the mixture has frothed up.
  2. In a pan, heat up the marg, rum, vanilla essence, peel, and the 80g sugar. Whisk until thoroughly mixed and starting to boil.
  3. Put the flour into a large bowl and make a well. Pour in the contents of the pan and stir into the flour using a wooden spoon. When the mixture starts to get doughy, start to mix using your hands.
  4. Knead into nice, elastic, smooth dough. This will take 5 – 10 minutes.
  5. Cover with a clean tea towel and place in a warm place for 1 – 2 hours until the dough has doubled in size.
 
Whilst the dough is rising, make the filling:
 
Filling:
Ingredients:
  • 250g walnuts
  • 250g almonds
  • 100g sugar
  • 50g agave syrup
  • 100ml soya milk
  • 2tsp vanilla essence
  • 2tsp ground cinnamon
  • Peel of ½ orange 
  • ½ lemon
  • 2tbsp rum
  • 2tbsp soya cream
 
Method:
  1. Whiz up the almonds and half the walnuts in a food processor until fine crumbs are formed. Leave to one side.
  2. Whiz up the remaining walnuts until very roughly chopped.
  3. In a pan, heat up the sugar, agave, soya milk, vanilla, rum, cinnamon and peel until all melted and beginning to boil. Add the finely ground nut crumbs and stir in. Allow to bubble for 5 minutes whilst stirring.
  4. Take off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. 
 
Potica construction:

1. Knead the dough again for a further 5 minutes before rolling out onto a well-floured surface.

2. Roll out to about ¼ cm in thickness (or as thin as possible before the point where the dough turns translucent or starts to break / form holes).

3. Spread the cooled filling over the dough. I used a rubber spatula. It might seem that there isn’t enough filling but keep spreading! Once spread, sprinkle the roughly chopped walnuts over the dough. Then drizzle the cream over the top.

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           4. Roll up the potica into a long sausage shape.

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5. Here’s the part where you can use your imagination. You can cook the potica in almost any tin. You can layer it up so that when cut, the cake displays various layers of rings, or you can keep it simple.

I sliced the roll up into 4 pieces and placed around a greased bundt tin, overlapping the ends.

6. Leave the cake to rise in a warm place for a further hour, before baking in an oven preheated to 180oC for around 20 minutes. (Cooking times will vary depending on the size and depth of the tin, so be careful to keep an eye on your cake).

7. The potica should easily slide out of the tin when turned upside down. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

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I’m not sure how the Slovenian’s devour this delightful dessert, but I couldn’t resist serving it with lashings of dairy-free custard. Mmmmmm!

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Happy Easter everyone!

Flash-Gordonette…x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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