Orange Poppy Seed Cake

Many years ago I was living in the inner Sydney suburb of Enmore. On Enmore Road was a fantastic little cake shop – the sort that actually makes cakes on the premises instead of just selling glazed crap with fake cream and trans-fat oils.

Anyway, that was where I first had Orange Poppy Seed cake, which if I recall was A$15 for a double-decker 30cm diameter cake. So it was just obvious that we would need to re-create a vegan version of that if for no other reason than Enmore Road is now a 24 hour flight away.

Like the Chocolate Cake, this too has passed the vigorous “Non vegan visiting children” test with flying colours.

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups plain flour (organic, stoneground, white flour – preferably NOT “strong” flour which is used primarily for bread making)
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 2 tspn baking powder
  • ¼ tspn salt
  • 1 ½ tabs poppy seeds
  • ½ cup almond meal (or finely chopped almonds)
  • ¾ cup soy milk
  • 2 tspn orange extract
  • Zest of 1 orange
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • Egg replacer, equal to one egg (or use an egg if you eat them)

Method

  • Preheat oven to moderate temperature (180˚C).
  • In a bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, poppy seeds, and almonds.
  • Add the soy milk, orange extract, zest, oil and egg replacer (or egg) and stir together gently until “just mixed”.
  • Pour into a lightly oiled 8-inch cake pan
  • Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  • Ice the cake with icing made with icing sugar and using only some juice from the orange as the liquid.

Chocolate Cake

That got your attention didn’t it….Chocolate….

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups plain flour (organic, stoneground, white flour – preferably NOT “strong” flour which is used primarily for bread making)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ¼ cup cocoa
  • 1 tspn bicarbonate of soda
  • ½ tspn salt
  • ⅓ cup vegetable oil
  • 3 tspn vinegar
  • 1 tspn vanilla essence
  • 1 cup water

Method

  • Preheat oven to moderate temperature (180˚C).
  • Grease and flour a standard sized square cake tin, (or a round one of equivalent size, which would be perhaps 30cm in diameter).
  • Mix all ingredients together lightly and thoroughly with a fork.
  • Pour into tin and cook for approximately 35 minutes or until cake pulls away slightly from the edge of the tin.
  • Test with a thin skewer in the centre of the cake. If the skewer comes out dry, then the cake is ready.
  • Cool the cake mostly in the tin, then turn out onto a cake rack.
  • When cool, ice with chocolate icing, or just eat the cake as is.

This has passed the vigorous “Non vegan visiting children test” with flying colours, and has also won special awards at the “School fair – I can’t believe it is vegan” category.