My Last Blog Post....

A very difficult decision, but yes, it is time for me to say goodbye. I’ve been blogging now since 2006 and 9 years is pretty good going but my heart just isn't in it anymore. This is down to a few reasons but mostly my health - the lupus keeps acting up and I find I just don’t have the energy or time. (Other food bloggers will know how much work goes into just one blog post!) As you can see from the above photo this isn’t down to a lack of ideas – those are all my recipes that were waiting to be blogged but I never got around to, shamefully just sitting in a pile!

I started this blog to simply share my recipes, hoping they would help out other vegans, new vegans and especially the vegan curious to show how easy and versatile a vegan diet is. I hope it did just that :-)

Mostly, I just want to thank all my readers for your kind words and support over the years. For those who took the time to email me or comment, to help promote the blog or a post etc…and all those who simply liked and followed. This blog wouldn't have taken off without you all so – THANK YOU!

As for me, I've been wanting to seriously scale back my ‘online’ time for a while now so will be doing just that. So, no more social media for me and I'll be spending much more time out in the garden and, when I am able to, working on the house….we built it 5 years ago and are nowhere near finished! The blog and all the recipes will of course remain up and I still kindly ask that the recipes are not reposted/reprinted but rather are just linked to instead.  

Lastly, who knows? If I miss blogging too much and feel better then I may start it up again but for now I’ll say goodbye.....

....but first, one more recipe! What, you didn't think I'd leave without one did you? ;-)

Mocha Cake • Coffee Buttercream • Chocolate Ganache

I actually made this back in May for my husbands birthday - see? I really can't get around to things anymore, lol....anyway, some of you might remember that we've been suspecting gluten is bothering him so I had to make a gluten free vegan cake for him. I had a good search online but in the end decided to "de-glutenize" my basic chocolate cake recipe (which is just the standard wacky cake recipe) with a lot of help from my friend Katie who is a great chef and has been cooking and baking gluten-free for many years now. Thanks Katie! 

Well, it turned out beautifully with great texture and flavour. My son remarked that "no one would guess this was gluten-free, it just tastes like regular chocolate cake" - which is just what I was after :-) Unfortunately I have used a product here that may be available only in the UK and Ireland but I'm sure alternative ones exist. To replace the flour I use a mixture of gluten-free oat flour, sorghum flour and Doves Farm's Gluten-Free white flour mix. - a mix of rice, potato, tapioca, maize and buckwheat. So hopefully you can find something similar if you can't buy that, but I'm sure any gluten-free white flour mix will work here :-) 

Gluten-Free Mocha Celebration Cake:

Chocolate Cake
240g Doves Farm's gluten-free white flour mix (see above for details)
70g sorghum flour
70g oat flour
300g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum
60g cocoa powder
3 tsp vanilla extract
160ml vegetable oil
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
480ml cold coffee 

Grease and line two 7 or 8 inch round cake pans - set aside. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Combine all dry ingredients and whisk well. Combine all wet ingredients and whisk well. Pour the wet into the dry and using the mixer beat for 5 minutes, until really smooth. Pour evenly into the two pans, level them and place in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool but leave them in the pans, they will split while cooling if you remove them. When cool remove from the pans, wrap firmly in cling film (again to prevent splitting).

Frosting:
175g vegan margarine 
430g icing sugar
2 ½ tsp instant espresso powder
1 Tbsp hot water

Dissolve the espresso powder in the hot water and set aside. Beat the margarine until light then start adding the icing sugar, beat well each time. When it starts getting dry add some of the espresso mixture. Continue adding the icing sugar and espresso mix until it is all added. You should have a soft but firm buttercream, if you find it a bit runny simply add some more icing sugar. If it is too stiff add a drop of dairy free milk.

Chocolate Ganache:
100g dark chocolate (70%), chopped
85ml soy cream
10g extra virgin coconut oil
½ Tbsp Kahlua 

Place the chocolate in a small bowl. In a small saucepan heat up the cream and fat until it melts and it all just comes to the boil. Quickly pour over the chocolate, leave it a few seconds then whisk it up until smooth and glossy. Whisk in the kahlua. Leave it out at room temperature, stirring now and again until it thickens up slightly. It will be too runny to pour over the cake right away, you want it pourable but thick enough that it will only slowly run down the sides. Don't be impatient here, it can take awhile to get thick enough to pour over.

Assembly:

Place 1 cake onto cake stand and spread with the frosting, fairly thickly. Add the other cake on top then frost the sides and top. When the ganache is ready spoon it over top and spread it out until it just starts to run down the sides of the cake. 

The crucial thing now is to get it into the fridge. I left mine out and my kitchen was very warm which eventually caused the ganache to separate from the frosting a bit. Once I got it in the fridge this was no longer a problem though, so make sure you get it in right away! 

Enjoy!

♥♥♥

Chocolate Banana Loaf Cake

Once again I found myself with some over ripe bananas that needed using up! I know what you're thinking, why doesn't she just buy less bananas?? Truthfully, I think on some unconscious level I buy extra just so they'll go black and I'll be forced to bake with them ;-)

This time I wanted to try something different than the plethora of baked banana goods I have on the blog and loved the idea of a simple chocolate banana loaf cake. I've based this one my Chocolate Zucchini Bread but have swapped the zucchini with banana and the homemade egg replacer with simple plain soy yogurt.

The end result was a deeply chocolate flavoured banana cake with a beautiful texture whilst still being wonderfully moist. It's really perfectly sweet as it is but if you want to take it to another level some vegan chocolate chips added to the mix would be fantastic!

Chocolate Banana Loaf Cake:

300-400g peeled weight very ripe bananas (about 5 small/med.)

140g / 1 cup plain flour

45g / ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

120ml vegetable oil

200g / ¾ cup + 2 Tbsp golden caster sugar (can use regular granulated)

1 tsp vanilla extract

125g / ½ cup plain soy yogurt

125g / ½ cup vegan chocolate chips - optional

Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C and grease a 9x5x3" loaf pan then line the bottom with baking paper.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sifted cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar.

In another bowl mash the bananas really well. Add the oil, vanilla and soy yogurt and whisk well.

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and use a rubber spatula to fold it in until there is no more flour showing. Do not over mix and keep it gentle! If using, fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour and scrape the mixture into the prepared loaf pan and pop it in the oven. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out fairly clean.

Transfer to a wire rack to fully cool in the tin then remove from the tin, slice and serve. 

♥

Nutritional Information: per 100g

Calories: 325

Protein: 3.7g

Fat: 15g

Sat Fat: 1.6g

Carbs: 47.8g

Sugar: 28.3g

Fibre: 3.2g

Sodium: 242mg

You Might Also Like:

Banana White
Chocolate Muffins

Cinnamon Kissed Banana
Dark Chocolate Muffins

Blackberry & Apple Almond Loaf Cake

Like my previous post this is another variation on a recipe already on the blog. I have been making loads of different versions of the Cranberry Almond Tea Cake for quite awhile now but haven't gotten around to blogging them.

First, a couple summers ago (!) I made a Blackberry and Lemon version which was so good, and great for using up all those buckets of blackberries we always seem to get in August :-) Then I found myself with some pears that needed using up and made a Pear and Almond Loaf Cake, also wonderful and now, a blackberry and apple almond loaf cake.

What I'm trying to say is: this recipe is VERY versatile ;-) You can basically put in any fruit or berries you like, I never add nuts but they would go nicely as well. A cinnamon, apple and pecan version sounds pretty tasty actually...as does a cherry and almond version or strawberry vanilla etc... etc... As long as you keep the cake recipe the same and the weight/measure of fruit about the same you can do what you like.

For this one I was given some apples, not sure what kind to be honest, I think they were a mixture of cooking apples and golden delicious and as they needed using up threw them in with some frozen berries I had. I kept the almond flavouring here as is in the Cranberry Loaf Cake as I simply love almond flavoured cakes, easily my favourite and it goes very well here.

Blackberry & Apple Almond Loaf Cake:

260g plain flour
120g caster sugar
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
180ml unsweetened almond milk
4 Tbsp cornstarch
110g vegan butter, melted
2 tsp almond extract
150g frozen blackberries
200g peeled and thinly sliced apple, toss in lemon juice to keep from browning

Glaze:
100g icing sugar
1 Tbsp unsweetened almond milk
¼ tsp almond extract
¼ tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 190C / 380F and grease a loaf tin.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl whisk together the milk and cornstarch. Whisk in the almond extract then slowly whisk in the melted butter. Toss the fruit in with the flour mixture then pour over the liquid and fold with a rubber spatula until mixed. Be careful not to over mix.

Scrape into prepared tin, level off the top and bake for 45 minutes. It should be risen, golden brown on top and make sure a toothpick or wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf cake comes out clean. (I have pulled this out too early before and had a doughy centre!) Cool in tin 15 minutes then remove cake from the tin to fully cool on a wire rack. I like to place it on it's side to cool.

Whisk together the glaze ingredients until thick but just pourable, add more milk or icing sugar as need be then pour and spread on top letting some drizzle over the sides.

♥

Blackberry & Lemon Version:

Cake:

Swap the almond extract with lemon extract

Omit the apple, can increase blackberries to 200g if you like.

Glaze:

omit the almond extract

increase vanilla extract to 1/2 tsp

add the zest of 1 lemon

Pear & Almond Version:

Make as per the Blackberry, Apple and Almond cake but omit the blackberries, swap the apple with diced pear and increase to 200g.

♥

Nutritional Information: (Blackberry, Apple and Almond version, per 100g)

Calories: 244

Protein: 2.8g

Fat: 7.4g

Sat Fat: 1.6g

Fibre: 1.7g

Carbs: 41.7g

Sugar: 19.1g

Sodium: 250mg

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Muffins

Raspberry Bakewell
Tarts

Neapolitan Layer Cake

Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry Layer Cake with Petal Design Frosting

Well, it has been awhile since I've had a decadent cake post ;-) I made this for my husband's birthday a few weeks ago, and it's something I've wanted to try for awhile now. Actually, my son had a choice of this cake or the Spaghetti and Meatball cake for his birthday in March but the novelty factor of the latter cake was too much for him to resist!

I've really combined 2 different cakes here that I've seen around and wanted to try. First the cake itself - Neapolitan cake: fairly straightforward, just a layer of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry cakes. Then I saw this petal frosting design on this Bakewell Ombre Cake on BBC Good Food and loved the look of it. Thankfully there are lots of tutorials out there on how to do this but really, you're just piping a blob of frosting onto the cake then smearing it to the side with the back of a spoon or small off-set spatula. Time consuming, yes, but not difficult.

Each frosting layer is also flavoured chocolate, vanilla and strawberry and I have to say this cake smells JUST like neapolitan ice cream! It's rather incredible. For the chocolate cake I used the standard chocolate wacky cake recipe that I use for all my chocolate cakes but scaled it down and baked into one 7" cake pan. Then I made an individual vanilla cake using my white cake recipe and an individual strawberry cake also using my white cake recipe PLUS some natural strawberry extract and some pink food colouring paste....which, yes - I was a little heavy handed with in both the cake and the frosting, lol, I was really after something a little more pastel like than what I got, but whatever! Live and learn, food colouring pastes are really potent :-)

One apology on all the recipes here: I wasn't able to convert it all into cups as I just had too much going on with the scaling down of the cake recipes. So, it's all in grams but if I can get on my soapbox here: weighing is a MUCH better and more accurate way of baking, and I'm speaking as someone who grew up using cups then moved to the UK and switched to weighing. For example if you measure out 1 cup of flour it will weigh something slightly different every time but 140g is always 140g. (And don't get me started on measuring things like whole pecans in a cup, haha!! What about all the empty space?!?!) If you do a lot of baking I really recommend picking up a small digital scale.  Anyway....on to the recipe :-)

Neapolitan Layer Cake

For the Chocolate Cake Layer:

• 188g plain flour

• 150g caster sugar

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 30g unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1½ tsp vanilla extract

• 80ml vegetable oil

• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 240ml cold water

Grease and line the base of an 7" round cake tin with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Whisk all the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl whisk together all the wet ingredients. Pour the wet into the dry and whisk until just smooth - don't overdue it. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes or until firm but bouncy on top and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Leave to fully cool in the tin.

For the vanilla cake layer:

• 75g vegan butter

• 135g white caster sugar

• 1 tsp clear vanilla extract 

• 180g plain white flour

• 1½ tsp baking powder

• 1/8 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 + 1/8 tsp salt

• 95ml plain soy yogurt

• 95ml sparkling water

• ¾ Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Grease and line an 7” cake pan with baking paper.

In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugar until creamy. In another bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large measuring cup whisk together the soy yogurt, sparkling water, vanilla and vinegar.

Alternately add the flour and liquid to the butter mixture starting and ending with the flour. So you add 1/3 of the flour mixture then half of the liquid, 1/3 of the flour mixture, last of the liquid then last of the flour. Mix in with a rubber spatula using a quick folding in movement and only mix until well blended in after each addition - take care not to overmix.

Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared tin, level off the top and pop it into the preheated oven for about 40 minutes. It should be firm on top, bounce back a little when pressed on top and a wooden skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean with just a few crumbs attached. Remove from the oven and leave to fully cool on a wire rack, in the tin.

For the strawberry cake layer:

• 75g vegan butter

• 135g white caster sugar

• 1 tsp natural strawberry extract 

• tiny bit of pink food colouring paste* - check it's vegan of course!

• 180g plain white flour

• 1½ tsp baking powder

• 1/8 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 + 1/8 tsp salt

• 95ml plain soy yogurt

• 95ml sparkling water

• ¾ Tbsp apple cider vinegar

* I used Wilton food colouring paste in Rose, it's labelled vegetarian and is also vegan according to this site selling it.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Grease and line an 7” cake pan with baking paper.

In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugar until creamy. In another bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large measuring cup whisk together the soy yogurt, sparkling water, strawberry extract, paste colour and vinegar.

Alternately add the flour and liquid to the butter mixture starting and ending with the flour. So you add 1/3 of the flour mixture then half of the liquid, 1/3 of the flour mixture, last of the liquid then last of the flour. Mix in with a rubber spatula using a quick folding in movement and only mix until well blended in after each addition - take care not to overmix.

Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared tin, level off the top and pop it into the preheated oven for about 40 minutes. It should be firm on top, bounce back a little when pressed on top and a wooden skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean with just a few crumbs attached. Remove from the oven and leave to fully cool on a wire rack, in the tin.

Spaghetti and Meatball Cake

Hello again!! I know, it's been ages...it started off with me just taking a break from blogging and ended up with me having a myriad of health issues - not all of which lupus related. Basically, January and February in particularly were the worst ever and again I apologise to all who tried to get in touch with me during that time but hopefully you can understand. I'm still not 100% - still a lot of tests and investigations to do and I'm still not sure I'm back to blogging for good but I thought I should touch base at least, especially with such a fun post as this one!

It was my son's 12th birthday recently and those of you who have been following the blog for awhile know that I like to make him a novelty cake or at least a special cake of some description. There has been the Veggie Burger Cake, Minecraft Cake, 10 Layer Chocolate Orange Cake and the Double Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake.

I've seen these spaghetti and meatball cakes around and thought they just looked so fantastic and really, they are so simple! Just cake, piped buttercream frosting, some chocolate Kahlua cake balls and raspberry coulis for a tomato sauce. What I really love about them is that they don't call for any fondant frosting. Fondant is wonderful for creating really creative and accurate looking cakes but lets face it, the stuff tastes gross. When we were eating the Minecraft Cake we flicked off all the tiles :-) This is just all luscious vanilla buttercream frosting - yay! I should also add that although it looks like it's covered in a shed load of frosting, it's really not:

Taste wise, this cake is amazing, that combo of deep chocolate cake, fluffy vanilla buttercream and punchy raspberry coulis is just gorgeous! This is definitely a cake I would make again, even just plain and without the novelty factor ;-) 

Now, I'm afraid that I was still in a "not blogging" zone when I made this so failed to get any how to pictures. Sorry. But it's really such an easy cake you shouldn't need any. I'll post the recipes I used for the cake and frosting but really you can use any chocolate cake and vanilla frosting recipe here :-)

Spaghetti and Meatball Cake

For the Chocolate Cake(s):

• 375g plain flour

• 300g caster sugar

• 1 tsp salt

• 2 tsp baking soda

• 60g unsweetened cocoa powder

• 3 tsp vanilla extract

• 160ml vegetable oil

• 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 480ml cold water

optional - a few drops of vegan friendly red food colouring added to the water.

First a word on the bowl I baked this in. I thought this would look most effective baked right into a pasta bowl and thankfully my Denby dishes are oven safe. I have even baked a cake in these before as it's the bowl I used to make the burger top on the Veggie Burger Cake! It's 8.5" wide at the top and 1.5" deep (5.5" wide at the base). If you don't have an oven safe pasta bowl a pie dish would work as it has slanted sides, if not, others have just made this in an 8" cake pan - just have a google search to see.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Grease and flour the pasta bowl AND an 8" cake pan. (One cake will be your spaghetti and meatball cake, the other you will use to make the meatballs.) 

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk together all the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl. I did add a few drops of red colour here as I thought it would help make the cake balls look a little more "meaty" but it's entirely optional.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the liquid, whisk until it all just comes together and there is no more flour showing. Pour into the pasta bowl almost full - about 3/4 then pour the rest into the 8" cake pan. Pop into the preheated oven and bake for about 30 - 45 minutes. I found that the 8" cake was ready after about 30 minutes but the pasta bowl cake took about 45 minutes. Just keep checking with a toothpick - it should come out clean with no batter stuck to it.

Once cooked, remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool - leave them in the bowl and tin.

For the Meatballs:

• the 8" cake you baked earlier

• about 2 tsp Kahlua (you can also use apple juice)

• you will also need a food processor

Crumble half of the cake baked into the 8" cake pan into a food processor and process until it's fine crumbs. Sprinkle on the Kahlua and process again. Test the mixture by pressing some between your fingers, if it sticks together it's ready, if not, sprinkle a bit more Kahlua on and process again.

Tip the mixture into a bowl and squish and roll into meatballs, whatever size you like, and set them aside on a plate. How many you like is up to you - lots of little meatballs or just a few large ones, either would look good.

Crumble the other half of the cake into the food processor and also process into fine crumbs. Tip this into a shallow bowl.

Take a cake ball and dampen it with water, now roll it into the cake crumbs so that they stick to the cake ball. It's the crumbs that make it look more like meat in texture. Plus, the chocolate cake mixture goes almost black when rolled into balls and the crumb coating is a better colouring. Once they are all made just set aside and make the frosting. Note: there will be leftover cake crumbs.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

• 185g vegan butter

• 2 1/2 cups icing sugar

• 2 Tbsp dairy free milk

• 1 tsp vanilla extract, the regular dark brown vanilla helps the pasta colouring here. Don't use a clear vanilla extract.

• a few drops vegan yellow food colouring, preferably a paste

Place the butter in a large bowl and soften, add some of the icing sugar and mix well. Add the vanilla and mix well then the rest of the icing sugar with the milk when needed until you have a thick and creamy frosting. Now add a tiny amount of yellow food colouring, I used a paste as I prefer how they don't upset the consistency of the frosting. Just make sure you add a tiny bit at a time as you don't need much. Actually, depending on how yellow your vegan butter is, you may not need any. Just go by how "pasta-ey" the frosting is looking.

Note: you won't need all the frosting but it's best to have more, particularly if you do want to pile it on, then you won't run out and be left with trying to get the colour the same in the next batch.

Buttercream recipe source: foodequalshappyme.com.

Assembly:

• raspberry coulis*

• vegan white chocolate or fine desiccated coconut

First, frost the top of the cake with a thin layer of the buttercream.

Place the meatballs on top of the cake using toothpicks to hold them into place. I placed the toothpick where I wanted a meatball, then skewered the meatball on top.

Spoon the frosting into a large piping bag fitted with a small rope tip (whatever size looks like spaghetti to you) and pipe all over the cake and around the meatballs until there are no gaps anywhere and it looks like a big bowl of spaghetti :-)

Now place the cake in the fridge - this is important to keep the frosting firm - you don't want it getting soft and losing it's shape. Also make sure you don't have anything smelly like open onions in your fridge as the cake will absorb the flavours!

Just before serving, spoon over some raspberry coulis, especially over the meatballs and around the top of the cake then grate some vegan white chocolate over top to look like parmesan cheese. If you can't find this some fine desiccated coconut would work too.
Tip: refrigerate the white chocolate before hand to make it easier to grate.

* For the raspberry coulis, I actually decided I had enough to do on my son's birthday as I was also making several pizza's by scratch  SO I cheated and bought a store made raspberry coulis. I am so glad I did though as it was absolutely gorgeous!! For those of you in the UK and Ireland it was Tesco's Finest Raspberry Sauce and I just ran it through a fine sieve to get rid of the seeds, then added a tiny bit of vegan red food colour paste to deepen the colour a bit (but that's really not essential). My only qualm with it is that it was quite thin in texture, it would have looked better if the sauce was thicker as most of mine trickled down below the "spaghetti". That being said, it tasted so good I didn't mind!

•To make your own, this recipe for raspberry coulis looks very good: http://foodequalshappyme.com/2013/08/11/spaghetti-meatballs-cake/ This is also where I got the buttercream recipe from, I wanted to make sure it was a frosting recipe that would be firm enough to hold it's shape as "spaghetti" and yet be soft enough to pipe with such a small tip.

♥

You Might Also Like:

Veggie Burger Cake

Minecraft Cake

Raspberry Bakewell Tarts

Flaky pastry, raspberry jam, moist almond cake and a vanilla glaze.

These came about quite accidentally. The other day while my husband was working in the garden he handed me a small bucket full of blackberries that just happen to grow wild in the bushes on our property. I had been massively craving a good old-fashioned berry pie for days so I very happily whipped up a blackberry pie (which was so pretty, really wish I took a picture!)

Anyway, I had some pastry leftover sitting in the fridge and thought I would make some tarts. The pastry is my standard pastry recipe with a little added sugar. The cake recipe more or less comes from this cherry bakewell cake recipe on BBC Good Food with a little veganizing and scaling down to make tarts.

They really are incredible, I've made them a few times now and they have become a firm family favourite.  Flaky pastry, raspberry jam and a moist almond cake topped with vanilla icing. Absolutely lovely :-) Scroll down for step by step photos!

Raspberry Bakewell Tarts

Pastry:

• 140g plain flour

• 1 Tbsp caster sugar

• ¼ tsp salt

• 75g vegan butter, frozen in blobs

• ½ tsp white vinegar

• 2- 2½ Tbsp ice cold water

Filling:

• (about) 2 Tbsp Raspberry Jam

Almond Cake:

• 50g vegan butter

• 50g caster sugar

• 1 “egg” – 1 Tbsp cornflour, 1/8 tsp baking powder, 1/8 tsp xanthan gum, 1 tsp oil, 50ml water

• 50g ground almonds

• 1/2 tsp almond extract

• 25g self-rising flour

• ¼ tsp baking powder

• Tiny pinch of salt

Icing:

• 100g icing sugar

• ¼ tsp vanilla

• (about) ½ Tbsp water to make a thick glaze 

Pastry:

First, freeze the vegan butter, this will help the butter process into the flour properly and help make the pastry really flaky but you will need small blobs of butter instead of a solid block. Just drop teaspoons of butter onto a plate lined with cling film then freeze until the butter is firm and frozen, it will take a few hours.

Place the flour, sugar, salt and frozen butter in food processor. Process until it's like fine crumbs, transfer to a bowl thin stir in the vinegar and enough of the water so that it just comes together.Tip out onto board and shape into a disc. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 1 hour. 

*cheat code - just buy vegan friendly ready made shortcrust pastry. In the UK/IRE Jus-Rol brand is vegan (last I checked) *

Remove the pastry from the fridge and give it a little quick knead - this will make it easier to roll out. Roll out the pastry and cut out circles using a cookie cutter that is about the same width as your tart pan indents and place into tart pan. Return the pastry lined tart pan to the fridge to keep cool while the cake batter is made. 

Almond Cake:

Preheat oven to 180C/ Fan:160C. First make the "egg" - whisk together the cornflour, xanthan gum and baking powder. Slowly add the oil and water whisking all the while. Continue to whisk briskly until it is VERY thick. Then add the almond extract and whisk again.

Cream the butter and sugar together, beat in the "egg" and extract. Whisk in the ground almonds then fold in the flour, salt and baking powder. Spoon a small teaspoon of jam into each pastry case then spoon the cake batter over top of jam, spread it out so it covers the tart then bake for 30 minutes or until lightly golden and firm to touch. Let fully cool in pan on a wire rack then remove the tarts to the wire rack. 

Vanilla Glaze:

Mix the icing sugar, water and vanilla until you have a very thick glaze, spoon over each tart and spread out gently just to the edges. The glaze should be thick enough that it doesn't run over the edges of the tarts but just runny enough that it will spread out. I drop a small tablespoon of the icing right in the centre of the tart then give it a gentle push out the edges with the back of a small spoon.

Yields 12 tarts.

Step by step photos! 

(well, except for the icing part - ooops!)

 Freeze the vegan butter into blobs for about 4 hours.

Add the flour to a food processor, then add the sugar.

Add the salt.

Add the frozen 'butter'.

Process just until it is crumbly.

Transfer to a bowl and add the ice water and vinegar, mix with a fork until you have a shaggy dough like this.

 Bring together into a disc.

Wrap in cling film and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Cream the butter and sugar.

Whisk the "egg" ingredients together until thick, then add the almond extract.

Add  the "egg" to the creamed mixture. (Note how thick the 'egg' should look).

Whisk the "egg" into the creamed mixture.

Add the ground almonds.

Whisk in the ground almonds (ignore the spatula, I used that after!)

Add the flour, salt and baking powder.

Fold in gently with a spatula until just mixed.

Use a round cutter that is the same size as your tart pan as you don't want the pastry going all the way up the sides - that's for the cake!

Roll out the pastry and cut out circles.

Place each pastry circle into the tart pan. Note the different thickness in my tarts as I suck at re-rolling out dough consistently!

Fill each tart with a teaspoon of raspberry jam.

Top each tart with a small tablespoon of cake batter. It will be thick.

Spread the cake batter out, making sure it goes right to the edge of the pastry. The easiest way is to spread out from the centre using your 2 index fingers.

Bake for 30 minutes at 180C/ Fan:160C then leave to fully cool in the tin on a wire rack.

Once cool transfer to a wire rack then ice them....which I didn't get a photo of as it's messy business! Just drop a blob of the thick glaze in the centre of the tart and gently push it out to the edges. It should be thick enough that it doesn't run over the sides. If it does stop and add a bit more icing sugar to the mix.

Wait for the glaze to set, pour yourself some tea or coffee and enjoy!

Nutritional Information: per tart (out of 12)

Calories: 155

Protein: 1.7g

Fat: 7.7g

Sat Fat: 1.6g

Carbs: 20.5g

Sugar: 12.9g

Fibre: 1g

Sodium: 118mg

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