Half Pint Pixie

NaBloPoMo 2008 – Day 2

I wanted to make a plain old regular jammy sponge cake for Littlepixie’s birthday, like the birthday cakes I remember from my youth, you know the type… just eggs, butter, flour & sugar (no fancy schmancy ingredients!). Could such a thing exist in veganland? I certainly hoped so!

So a few days ago I went questing on Magicmum as I remembered reading a thread about egg & dairy-free sponge cakes a few months ago and I found it! And I made it! And Mr. HPP decorated it!

And it was very scrumptious, moister than the sponge cakes of old, and not as fluffy (due to the lack of eggs I imagine) but it was really delicious, a real birthday-cake cake!

Along with the absolutely essential layer of strawberry jam, we spread a layer of whipped coconut cream between the cakes. We spread another layer of coconut cream on the top, lightly dusted it with hot chocolate powder, then crowned the cake with Dairy-Free buttons (it is a rare cake that escapes without a topping of chocolate powder & dairy-free buttons in the HPP household).

Et voila… Vegan Birthday Sponge Cake of Deliciousness! Ta-daaaaaaaa…..

The recipe is from “How to Cook for Food Allergies” by Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, I don’t have this book but I did find the Victoria Sponge recipe here for you to try…

Actually, I will repost it here with the quantities we used as they are a little different to the quantities on that page, and we’re not gluten-free so we used regular self-raising flour.

Vegan Victoria Sponge:

• 225g self-raising flour
• 4 tsp baking powder (instead of the normal 2 spoons, seems you needs to add an extra teaspoon for every 110g self raising flour if omitting eggs)
• 225g Dairy free margarine (we used Pure Sunflower)
• 225g caster sugar
• 225ml apple puree (we made our own, you could use storebought too) or you can use custard.

1. Preheat the oven to 180C or 350F, gas mark 4. Grease two 18cm sandwich cake tins, line with greaseproof paper and lightly brush with oil.
2. Sieve the flour and baking powder together into a bowl.
3. Add the margarine, sugar and apple puree (or custard) and whisk until thoroughly mixed. The mixture should fall slowly from a large spoon. Stir in one or two tablespoons of tepid water if necessary (we added 2).
4. Divide the mix between the two prepared tins, gently spread it over the base of the tins and level off with a knife. Place tins on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until firm and springy in the centre.
5. Leave the cakes to set for 30 mins before running a knife around the tins to loosen. Turn the cakes out onto a wire rack, leave to cool.
6. When cold, transfer one of the cakes, crust down, to a serving plate.
7. Spread the base of one of the cakes thickly with jam (and whipped coconut cream!) and place the other cake on top, crust uppermost.
8. Sprinkle with caster sugar (or a layer of coconut cream, then chocolate power and then buttons!), serve and enjoy.

Yum, yum, yum! A bit hit with everyone

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