Vegan Chocolate Cake

Recently I was asked to make a birthday cake for a friend, since I love making cakes this was a very welcome request, until came the stipulation that it had to be vegan. oh... I've never made a vegan cake in my life! The idea quite baffled me I mean eggs and butter are pretty much a staple in cake. This would be quite a challenge! It also had to be sturdy enough to stand up to being carved and covered in fondant as they wanted a rollerskate cake (as a side note Renshaw Regal-Ice and Modelling paste is totally vegan!).

I set about researching in earnest for vegan cake recipes, there are a few out there, most of which use oil, I tried one of the highest rated ones. I don't know what it is about oil based cakes but they just don't do it for me, the flavour always seems to be lacking the richness that butter gives it and it just seems to taste flat to me, I also really don't like the texture. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't get on with those kinds of recipes! So 1 try down and it was just ick, fudgy to the point of cloying in your mouth, almost like unbaked cake batter.

But, I had an idea! You can buy vegan butter so that's a start, and eggless cakes are quite popular as well so maybe an eggless cake was the way to go and I could 'veganize' it from there. This was by far the best choice. I found a simple eggless chocolate sponge and adapted it from there with almond milk in place of skim milk and vegan butter instead of butter. I also divide the flour between self raising and plain for a bit more lightness and added in some dark chocolate to up the chocolate factor a bit. The result was deliciously rich, moist cake that was tasted pretty much like a normal sponge cake. 

I will say that a problem of vegan cake is that it is quite crumbly, probably due to the lack of eggs so I found it best to leave it to cool completely in the tin before trying to move it and then by using two plates to kind of flip it over so you're not lifting it out as it's likely to crack. It also is much more stable to next day when it's had time to settle but if you are using it for carving/decorating you do need to be a bit more gentle!

For carving the cake I layered it up with peanut butter frosting (vegan butter, icing sugar and peanut butter) and then wrapped it in greaseproof and foil and froze it before attempting to do anything with it. It actually worked out quite well with minimal crumbling, just make sure you have a very sharp knife. Before crumb coating it I chucked it back in the freezer for half and hour and made sure my frosting was not too cold or thick otherwise it would have pulled off the crumb. Then just proceeded as usual, chilling the crumbcoated cake before covering in frosting. It turned out quite well if I do say so myself! And went down quite a treat with the intended birthday person!
(I used this recipe for vegan royal icing)

Vegan Moxi Skate Cake

Overnight Oats

Now the warmer weather is coming in I don't feel like filling up on a steaming bowl of porridge in the morning, but I do like my oats! They are so very healthy and tasty. What's a girl to do??

But then I discovered this wonderful, magical food called overnight oats! Have you heard about overnight oats? I think I'm quite late coming to this party but they are pretty amazing! Basically you toss oats, milk, chia seeds and whatever flavours you like into a jar, shake it up and throw it in the fridge overnight. In the morning you have gloriously thick oats that have absorbed all the liquid and become tender and delicious!

I also love them because they are so simple, no faffing about in the morning with the stove when you're sleepy and likely to burn down the house. No bowls/saucepans to wash up. Everything gets made into the jar and shaken up and then you can eat out of that jar too. Bonus! You make them the night before so it's just grab and go and you can make them up for a few days and not have to worry about breakfast! yay!

They are also so incredibly healthy! No nasty stuff in it and it's a really good way to get fruit into your breakfast as well as protein and everyone knows the oats are like the best superfood. What's not to like?

See? So healthy!

Into the jars it goes!