baking

[Cloud_Child]

Right i have two questions

Oneis does anyone have a good vegan spunge cake recipe? i tried one and it didnt really seem to work and i'm abit cautious about trying others

Baking bread should be easy but this is also something i would like a good recipe for, cause rising sometimes is a problem, can anyone help?

[Smoothie]

there is lots of cake recipes on this forum, find it in the foods section, under sweets

i find, that the best bread, is the kind where you mix a little bit of yeast (like 30 grams of living yeast for a kilo of flour), mix it in some water, pour in the flour (and seeds and nuts if you like that), and then mix until it has a good comsistency. and then leave it to rise in the fridge over night

then form into rolls and bake..

[Barley]

Right i have two questions

Oneis does anyone have a good vegan cake recipe? i tried one and it didnt really seem to work and i'm abit cautious about trying others

Baking bread should be easy but this is also something i would like a good recipe for, cause rising sometimes is a problem, can anyone help?

Question 2: Buy a bread maker! They are excellent - but, they vary considerably. I recommend the Russell Hobbs Breadman Pro and no other! Not very easy to find but if you google it, something will come up. It is not the cheapest, just the best!

Question 1:

8 oz plain flour (I use half 81% and half white)
3 oz margarine (I use Vitaquelle organic)
3 oz sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder

This is the basic cake mix - to this you can add, well, anything really - 4oz sultanas and tsp spice, some cherries, dates and walnuts, chopped, just coconut (though that makes quite a plain cake). Mix with water to quite a stiff consistency. Put in 2lb loaf tin - bake at 160 degrees c. Test after about 30 or so mins, then keep checking every 5 mins until nicely browned and a cake tester comes out clean. Then..... enjoy with a cup of tea!

Happy baking

[Cherry]

Which cake recipe did you try What sort of cake were you aiming for?

[Mr Flibble]

i tried one and it didnt really seem to work and i'm abit cautious about trying others

Why give up so easily? I tried at least 30 cake recipes over 4 years until I got a good one. My advice which I will get flamed for is to avoid any recipe with weird ingredients in (egg replacer, apple sauce, vinegar) and in general (without meaning to sound xenophobic/racist) recipes on american sites. Give some of Cherry's a try

[Barley]

Why give up so easily? I tried at least 30 cake recipes over 4 years until I got a good one. My advice which I will get flamed for is to avoid any recipe with weird ingredients in (egg replacer, apple sauce, vinegar) and in general (without meaning to sound xenophobic/racist) recipes on american sites. Give some of Cherry's a try

I couldn't agree more!! If you look at my cake recipe in the 3rd post of this thread you will see I don't use anything but water as a binder and I have brilliant cakes every time which slice well and never fall apart....

[Cloud_Child]

Well i am not giving up what i meant is im abit cautious of recipes from books, rather than ones from you lot who have tried them and kow what they are like. Will the cake you posted be spungy? I had a really nice spunge cake at this vegi/vegan restraunt, i really should of asked if they would give me the recipe.

[fiamma]

Not so fast Mr Flibble! This recipe uses vinegar , but it's dead easy and delicious too

Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup oil
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cold water

Mix together dry ingredients in large bowl.
Add the wet ingredients and stir together carefully until "just mixed" (don't over-mix).
Pour into 8-inch cake tin and bake at 175°C for 30-35 minutes.
Let cool for 10-15 mins before removing from tin.

[twinkle]

The idea of using vinegar in a sweet recipe is just icky to me (I think because of memories of mince pies using cheap mincemeat that had vinegar in, when I was a child - the taste just shone through, and not in a good way!). Why not use lemon juice if you have to have an extra acidic ingredient?

I generally make muffins if I want something cakey because they're easy and don't tend to fall apart.

My easy Vanilla Muffin recipe:

line a 12-muffin pan with paper cases

Preheat oven to a moderate 180-90 degrees C/ gas 4-5 (I think my oven overheats so I use the lower temp... )

13oz/370g white self-raising flour
5oz/140g sugar
5 tablespoons oil (I use sunflower or some other light tasting veg oil)
pinch of salt
1 pot (125g) of alpro vanilla custard + water to make volume up to just over 1/2 pint (you could use soya yoghurt/silken tofu instead and add a pinch more sugar, or just use all water. The recipe originally called only for water, but I started adding a pudding and it makes the resultant cake taste richer).
1 tsp vanilla extract.

Measure out the flour into a seive over a bowl (I put the bowl and seive onto the scales and then put it all in the seive.)

Put all the other ingredients in the list, including the sugar, into a blender. Whizz everything up for about 20 seconds until it's frothy.

Sieve the flour into the bowl, give the liquid ingredients a quick whizz again, then pour into the bowl. Mix it together (in a figure-8 motion, which is meant to incorporate more air, or at least not knock what's already in out) until no more clumps of dry mix appear, then divide the mixture between the cases. I normally put a heaped dessertspoonful of mixture into each case then top up with the remaining mixture.

Bake for approximately 18 minutes, but check after about 12 minutes and switch to a lower shelf/turn down temp if they look like they might burn.

To this basic mix you can add anything you like. I've made them with jam in place of most of the sugar for strawberry muffins, zest and juice of a lemon into the liquid ingredients for lemon muffins, or you can substitute an ounce or so of flour for cocoa powder for chocolate muffins, add in some chocolate chips, chopped nuts, glace cherries, etc.

I really like this recipe because it's incredibly quick, and they usually come out very light.

ETA: or you could just buy Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, which people can't seem to stop raving about.

[fiamma]

Twinkle I wouldn't have posted the recipe if I hadn't tried and tested it, or if it tasted "icky" . That might be your opinion but you seem to be basing it on cheap mincemeat... hardly a good comparison! You don't taste the vinegar here. I posted the recipe because it's an easy one. BTW many of the recipes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World also use apple cider vinegar...

[Smoothie]

most of the recipes in vegan cupcakes take over the world uses vinegar. and NO ONE should say anything bad about that book while i'm listening!

[twinkle]

Sorry, fiamma, didn't mean to cause offence, it's just something I have an irrational prejudice of, I'm sure

I am aware that many of the recipes in VCTOTW have vinegar in, it's one of the reasons I haven't bought it yet.

[Mr Flibble]

Personally I use either elbow grease or a blender to incorperate air, then put in a hot oven straight away - not try and trap foul smelling CO2 from vinegar reacting with baking soda (volcano anyone?). I'm sure using a bit won't affect taste that much (fiamma's recipe only has a tbsp (compared with some recipes that use half a cup!!) and her's uses cider vinegar, which is marginally better than malt), but like egg replacer I just think it's redundant.

[fiamma]

My apologies too, Twinkle, maybe I over-reacted. Sorry I'm sure you'd like my cake recipe if you tried it... Might cure you of your vinegarphobia...

[Poison Ivy]

I had never tried making cake that called for vinegar either until I bought VCTOTW - preferring to use soy yogurt and/or milk in place of the egg - but I am pleasantly surprised (an understatement ) at how good those cupcakes recipes are!! There is absolutely NO hint of vinegary taste in them (and it is only a small amount of vinegar called for) - believe me if there was I certainly wouldn't be eating them as pickled cake is not high on my list of priorities!!*bleurgh*

[absentmindedfan]

Sort of off-topic, but has anyone made hot cross buns?
I absolutely love them, but no shop sells vegan versions

[twinkle]

My mum makes gorgeous vegan hot cross buns. I think she just adds lemon zest, mixed spice, mixed peel, sultanas and a bit of sugar to a normal bread dough recipe. I can find out if she uses a recipe if you like.

[RedWellies]

hot cross buns?
I absolutely love them, but no shop sells vegan versions

Oh, I saw some the other day and a quick read of the ingredients seemed promising. They were in our local grocers though so might be a local produce. I'll have a look next time I'm in and contact the company.

[Cloud_Child]

Barely what recipe do you use for your breadmaker? i have had even less luck with ours hehe

[absentmindedfan]

My mum makes gorgeous vegan hot cross buns. I think she just adds lemon zest, mixed spice, mixed peel, sultanas and a bit of sugar to a normal bread dough recipe. I can find out if she uses a recipe if you like.

If you could that would be wonderful.

[flying plum]

Not so fast Mr Flibble! This recipe uses vinegar , but it's dead easy and delicious too

Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup oil
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cold water

Mix together dry ingredients in large bowl.
Add the wet ingredients and stir together carefully until "just mixed" (don't over-mix).
Pour into 8-inch cake tin and bake at 175°C for 30-35 minutes.
Let cool for 10-15 mins before removing from tin.

just wanted to say, i tried this over the weekend (well...twice, actually, the first one, i forgot i had a fan oven and didn't readjust the temperature...) and it was muchly tasty

i just had a question though...do you use plain or self-raising flour? in the (non-vegan) past, i've used self-raising to get cakes to rise...i didn't have any this weekend, so used plain (mainly as the first recepie on here also used plain), but it (as i thought it mightn't) didn't rise overly well.

is there a reason for using plain flour?

also, does it have to be oil, or could one use soya margerine?

and one last question...presumably the cider vinegar replaces egg...could i use that as a substitute if i was following a normal recepie?

i love that turning vegan makes me bake so much more (my flatmate loves it too!)

amanda

[fiamma]

Hi Amanda,
you need either self-raising flour (which is plain flour with baking powder added), or you need to add baking powder to plain flour to get a cake to rise.

Here plain flour is used because the vinegar reacts with the baking soda to produce a leavening effect.

I don't think you could use marg here - it would make the mixture stiffer and therefore would probably affect the raising process.

Cakes are a delicate balance of chemical processes. Things generally used to replace eggs are ground flax seeds (mixed with a little water and allowed to stand), tofu, banana and applesauce. Or some recipes just use baking powder. Another technique I saw was soya flour and orange juice. Generally you're best to find a recipe that uses the ingredients/technique you want to use and go from there, otherwise you risk a disaster

Hope that's been of some help, shout if you need more advice

[flying plum]

fiamma - thanks i did use baking powder, it just didn't rise as well as i would have liked, bit more like a brownie or a muffin type texture, than sponge cake it still tastes good though it's just a little denser than cakes i've made from pre-vegan days. but i guess it's to be expected that the results are not identical, if the ingredients are slightly different!


thanks for the explanations - i never really understood the science behind baking. i just followed the recipes!

amanda

[twinkle]

Sort of off-topic, but has anyone made hot cross buns?
I absolutely love them, but no shop sells vegan versions

I asked my mum, but I was right, she doesn't follow a recipe just adds the above things at random. However, I found this recipe on the vegetarian society website, if that's any use to you.

[absentmindedfan]

\o/
Thanks Twinkle

[harpy]

Someone on one of the Vegetarian Society mailing lists said recently that Iceland claimed their hot cross buns were vegan.

You can't tell from the packaging though - they're marked suitable for vegetarians but contain some of those diglyceride things that can be either vegetable or animal. I trustingly bought some but they're nothing special.

There are a few others listed on the Animal Free Shopper online but I'm not sure it's up to date as stores keep reformulating these things.

Home made is probably the way to go.

[flying plum]

a question for all you cake bakers out there...

often, when i bake a cake, it's nice and spongey inside, but i get quite a hard 'case' on the outside, especially the top. given, i'm not the best baker in the world, so i wondered if i was doing something wrong?

i've noticed that recipes i've done with vinegar have been fine...so is it something to do with a lack of that?

amanda

[Mr Flibble]

Sponge or heavier? what sort of temperature and for how long?

[flying plum]

the cake i did before, the recipe was 180 for 25 mins. first time i did it, the outside burnt and the inside didn't cook, then i realised it probably wasn't accounting for the fact i had a fan oven, so i reduced the temp to 160, and cooked it for 30 mins.

it was fine, but the outside was just a little hard (in both instances).

cakes i've done that have had vinegar in them have been fine (like the one in the post on the top of the page), but these were just flour, soy milk, oil water mixes. in fact, the one i did yesterday was off cherry's parsley soup website. it was very tasty, and after a night left in the fridge wasn't as crust-like on the outside, but i just wondered if there was a way to get a softer top like egg-like cakes?

amanda