The Alien Cake
Hey everyone! So this series has been such an amazing opportunity for me to have some fun, create a last side project that I don't have to be as perfectionist with and try some new things out! Vegan cooking is something I love, but vegan baking is new. So I wanted to google some interesting cake ideas and I found the best recipes that worked for a chocolate cake... but where's the fun in that? So I thought... let's make a weird shiny cake like those marbleised ones but like SLIME! Purple SLIME!
Ingredients
White Flour (2 cups)
Caster Sugar (1 cup)
Olive Oil (1/2 cup)
Baking Soda (1 tsp)
Salt (1 tsp)
Cocoa Powder (1 tbsp)
Vanilla Extract (2 tsp)
Apple Cider Vinegar (1 tsp)
Lemon Juice (1 tsp)
Vanilla Soy Milk (1 cup)
Icing
Vegan Butter (4 cups)
Icing Sugar (5 cups)
Vanilla Extract (1 tsp)
Purple Slime
Coconut Milk Powder (3 cups)
Vegetable Shortening (4 tbsp)
Almond Butter (1 tsp)
Vanilla Extract (1 tsp)
Icing Sugar (5 tbsp)
Vegan Gelatine (1/2 sachet)
Purple Food Dye (4 tsp)
So to start with! Let's make some buttermilk. I used vanilla soy and a tsp of lemon juice, it basically needs to be left somewhere room temperature for 10 minutes and it curdles. It's a vegan easy replacement for buttermilk. To that jug, add the filtered olive oil, you can use coconut but it's not really that big of a taste difference. Then the vanilla extract, then I added a dash of pink food dye for good measure and mixed it up.
Then in a larger bowl, I sieved the flour, cocoa and added the baking soda with the caster sugar. Combine and use some pressure to mix through with no lumps, and you should have a wet but bubbly mixture that is super thickems.
It kinda has the look of melted chocolate, the oil does that. It's really easy from that point. You just need to prep the oven at 180, then you line two easy lift cake tins with greaseproof paper and add some coconut oil to stop it sticking. They raise quite a bit, and it does not taste vegan whatsoever so it's a juicy moist one. This took about 19 minutes to cook, I was anticipating it would take 25 with 7 inch tins but it surprised me. So keep an eye out and poke a cocktail stick into the cake, when it comes out clean it's done.
Wait to cool, decant onto a tray and leave to cool. Then when it's very cool enough to pop into the fridge, leave it there to be super cool.
In a second bowl add the icing ingredients and mix enough to coat the cake, and be a layer in between!
I had a fun time lining it with the icing and it reminded me of a book my nan had which was from the 70s? There was a butter brand called stork and the recipe book was something you could collect from a magazine, I think it was called something like fairy icing? It was just delish and brought me back to my childhood cooking with nan.
In a second bowl, mix the white chocolate mixture. Basically, everything bar the purple dye and the vegan gelatine is a mixture for a vegan white chocolate. You can use cacao butter instead of the coconut, but it basically ends up the same. It's not gonna have the exact taste of white chocolate but it's the basis of the glossy marbalised icing. Then in a second bowl, mix up half a sachet of vegan gelatine with purple colouring, the directed amount of hot water and leave to cool. Once it's room temperature, combine the two, mix well and allow again to cool. You should have a liquid mixture that begins to set as solid.
Then add the mixture to the microwave for 30s, stir it up so there's no lumps and poor all over the cake! I thought it looked like amazing alien slime and it's such a delicious outer coating to a chocolate cake. You have to keep it in an air tight container and stick it in the fridge to keep the gloss!
Let me know if you try it out at home, I added some cute gold stars and it tastes... MOIST, bomb and pleasantly chocolatey. Not the over powering thing you get with milk chocolate, just amazing as a complimentary flavour to the icing. Hope you enjoy!
