There are tons of excellent recipes for vegan cakes, and believe you me I have eaten and experimented with many many tasty vegan cakes and pronounced most of them excellent, but to my SHOCK and HORROR I have never yet seen a recipe for a vegan Christmas cake anywhere. Of course, I considered this an outrage which I was keen to put right in sharpest possible fashion and so after 14 months of careful consideration and stringent research (i.e. flicking through my Gran’s old Women’s Institute cookbook) I invented this recipe which I am now going to present to you.
It doesn’t have the puddingy texture of the ‘Traditional’ Christmas cake, but it tastes extremely Christmassy. I hope you like it.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup of soya milk
1 teaspoon of Cider Vinegar
1/2 cup of vegan margarine (I used Pura sunflower)
3/4 cup of dark brown molasses sugar
Zest & juice of one small orange
Zest & juice of one lemon
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda & baking soda
1 teaspoon each of nutmeg and cinnamon powder
1/2 cup of dried chopped fruit (i.e. sultanas & raisins)
1 & 1/4 cup of plain flour (or use self raising and leave out the bicarbonate of soda and baking soda)
Brandy, sherry, or red wine
Preparatory step: if you have time, soak the dried fruit overnight in enough brandy or sherry to cover them. (I didn’t have brandy or sherry, so I used red wine instead – not strictly traditional, but it still tasted like christmas so I didn’t mind that much).
Firstly, measure out the soya milk and add the Cider vinegar to it. Mix the two together and set them to one side to curdle.
In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar with a wooden spoon. Once they’re beaten together so they’re soft and creamy, add the zest and juice of your fruits, the vanilla essence, the cinnamon and nutmeg, and the baking & bicarbonate sodas. When I did this part, the bicarbonate of soda started fizzing when it hit the lemon juice. I was a bit worried, but it turned out this fear was unfounded. The kitchen did not explode and the cakes turned out great. So when your cake mix starts fizzing, don’t worry. Nothing bad will happen. Just enjoy the noise, then give it a good mix. Add the soya milke and vinegar mix, and then beat it all together until it goes as smooth as you can get it. At this point, the whole mess will look all curdled and rancid. This is also all part of the grand plan which leads to brilliant cakes and which will all become clear in the next step.
Sieve in the flour. Mix it all together. You’ll see that the whole mix starts to come together and no longer looks like something you wouldn’t dream of putting in your mouth. The final thing is to drain the dried fruit of any excess sherry / brandy / red wine, and to gently fold the fruit into the mix.
Pour the mix into cupcake liners, and bake at 180 degrees centigrade for 20-25 minutes, or until you can smell christmas, and a skewer inserted into the bottom of a cupcake comes out clean.
If you are a marzipan lover like me, you can do like I did, and ice the little brutes with rounds of marzipan once they are cool. If you’re really fancy, you could sift a star design on top of the marzipan with icing sugar and a stencil. (mine are decorated with inedible IKEA gift ribbons).
Enjoy!
