Cereal crumb cake

Vegan Chocolate Orange Sponge Cake

Vegan Chocolate Orange Sponge Cake

Another Clandestine Cake Club meeting and another cake inspiration. Our secret location was Thyme to Eat, a vegetarian café located in the Shambles area of Chesterfield. Since Thyme to Eat specialise in vegetarian food it was our chance to bake some cakes for various dietary requirements. As this was a Clandestine Cake Club meeting I immediately reached for my Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook as I had previously made the Vegan Lemon Cake in it and it was very nice.

I've obviously changed the lemon to orange and added cocoa to get the chocolate hit. The original recipe uses Limoncello which is something that has never entered his house and probably never will. I substituted lemon extract for it then and used this same trick by using orange extract this time. I use Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Valencian Orange Extract but if you can't get hold it then old-fashioned zest and juice of a real orange could be used. For the soya spread I use Pure Dairy Free which is easily available in supermarkets.

Although this recipe doesn't have the same light and airy texture of a Victoria sponge made using eggs it is a pretty good alternative. It's also excellent even if you are not vegan and find you need to make a sponge cake in a hurry and you don't have enough eggs. As they say the proof of the pudding is in the tasting and I came home with just one slice left and compliments from the owner of Thyme to Eat.

Equipment: 2 x 8in/20cm sandwich tins.

Ingredients

9oz (250g) Self-raising flour

1oz (25g) Cocoa

1tsp (5ml) Baking powder

7oz (200g) Caster sugar

3½ fl oz (100ml) Corn oil

7 fl oz (200ml) Cold water

1tsp (5ml) Orange extract

Filling

4oz (100g) Soya margarine/spread

10½ oz (300g) Icing sugar, sifted

1tsp (5ml) Orange extract

Method

1. Line and grease 2 8in/20cm round sandwich tins

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/Gas mark 6.

3. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder together and stir in the sugar.

4. Add he oil, water and orange extract and fold in until the mixture is well combined. It should look more like a muffin mix.

5. Spoon the mixture evenly between the two tins and cook for 15-20 minutes until the sponges are cooked and springy to the touch

6. Leave in the tins for a few minutes before removing and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

7. For the filling put the margarine/spread in a bowl and then gradually beat in the icing sugar. Add the orange extract and beat well until the ingredients is mixed together.

8. Spread the top of one of the sponges with the filling and carefully place the other sponge on top. 

9. To finish off dust the top with either icing sugar or cocoa powder.

Vegan Blueberry Bran Muffin

Vegan Blueberry Bran Muffins

I like a blogging challenge – you may have noticed this if you have read some of the posts on here. So when the lovely Victoria from A Kick at the Pantry Door announced her new monthly blogging challenge of Feel Good Food I was in. To start the challenge the chosen ingredient is the superfood blueberries.

As always I knew I could bake the blueberries into a cake but I was undecided until I saw the theme of this month's Breakfast Club run by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours. This month's host, Elizabeth at Elizabeth's Kitchen, has set High Fibre as the challenge and with some wheat bran to use up my mind was made up – muffins it was!

 

I thought I'd make these muffins vegan not just for dietary reasons but on a practical note. Quite often I run out of eggs but still want to bake so having some recipes that can be made out of store cupboard ingredients is very handy. This recipe contains no strange or hard to get ingredients. The bag of wheat bran came from my local branch of Morrisons.

As these muffins don't contain any eggs they don't rise like a muffin normally does. However, if you don't want to hoof down a bowl of cereal whilst trying to put your shoes on and dry your hair at the same time, this is the breakfast for you. Pop a couple in your bag and eat them at a more digestible moment.

Equipment: 12 cup muffin tin lined with cases.

Ingredients

7oz (200g) Wholemeal plain flour

5oz (150g) Demerara sugar

2½ oz (75g) Wheat bran

2 tsp (10ml) Baking powder

4½ oz (125g) Blueberries, washed and dried

8 tbsp (120ml) Sunflower oil

8fl oz (230ml) Water

1 tsp (5ml) Vanilla extract

1½ tsp (7.5ml) Lemon juice

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4.

2. In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, wheat bran, baking powder and blueberries together. Make sure the blueberries are coated or they may sink.

3. In a separate bowl mix together the oil, water, vanilla extract and lemon juice.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined. Unlike other muffin mixes this isn't so wet.

5. Spoon the mixture equally between the 12 muffin cases.

6. Bake for 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Eggless Chocolate Orange Muffins

Eggless Chocolate Orange Muffins

I'll start off by telling you these muffins were born through a forgetful accident. It was Maudy Thursday and I had been out all day and by the time I had got the kids to bed it was quite late by the time I had started my baking list. I'd made the dough for the morning's hot cross buns and left it to prove but I also needed to make something to take with me to the football. I won't bore you with my footballing obsession except that Radio WDON provide radio commentary for AFC Wimbledon's match and are partial to a bit of cake. As I was going to one of the away matches I thought they may like a cake donation to keep them going through the trauma that is watching AFC Wimbledon this season.

So I made these muffins and took them out of the tray to cool on a wire rack. After the hot cross buns were baked I started to tidy everything away and that's when I noticed sitting on the side in the egg box was the egg that was meant to go into this recipe. I looked back at the cooling muffins and thought they looked fine. In fact this is the only muffin recipe I have ever made with or without egg that ever comes out looking like muffins. By this time it was too late to go out and get another orange so my husband offered to be first taster. We split one in half and I was very relived to discover they tasted delicious or as the Radio WDON commentator tweeted to me, “deee-lish”. He also told me he loved me - twice. We still haven't met...

These muffins do have a more heavier cake-like texture than other muffins, obviously due to them having no egg in them. However, if you are allergic to eggs, don't have any to hand or simply don't want egg in your recipe these really are a double chocolate delight with a good hit of orange.

Makes 12

Equipment: 12 cup muffin tin/pan, paper or silicone cases.

Ingredients

8oz (225g) Plain flour

2oz (55g) Cocoa powder

1 tbsp (15ml) Baking Powder

4oz (110g) Caster sugar

6 tbsp (90ml) Sunflower oil

7 fl oz (200ml) Milk

Zest and juice of 1 Orange

100g Dark chocolate either a bar smashed up or drops.

Method

1. Line the muffin tin with the cases.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6.

3. In a large bowl sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder.

4. Quickly add the remaining ingredients and mix together again just combined (i.e do not over mix or beat).

5. Put even amounts of the mixture into each of the cases.

6. Bake for around 15-18 minutes.

7. Once cooked leave to cool on a wire rack.