Did I ever tell you about the day that I was appointed chief of detectives of the egg police? No? It was a several years ago before the blog, on Mr NQN's birthday and we were having dinner with the Elliotts (cue the music to Jaws please Mr Music). I had organised his birthday at a Japanese restaurant and I was busy trying to negotiate a second language which I barely speak and people were asking me all sorts of questions about the cake, the food they were eating and just general daftness. Then,there was a loud, dramatic gasp and then a cry from Mr NQN's mother Tuulikki who was sitting next to me. I had apparently let her eat a piece of okonomiyaki, an egg omelette. "Lorraine! How could you let me do that?" she asked me looking at me accusingly and hurt.
"But, but it looks like a pancake or an omelette ... and they are two things that you can't eat as they both have eggs!" I spluttered, my energy completely sapped from the whole experience. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, I had been appointed the chief of detectives of the "Egg Police" and was expected to watch what she would eat and warn her accordingly. From that day on I resigned my position and she was on her own. It was up to her to ask whether an item had egg in it and if she ate it, it washer responsibility.
I know she and I have our moments where the vegan clashes with omnivore but we do get along well as long as we aren't talking about food. And apart from being an entertaining and charmingly eccentric artist, she also created Mr NQN who is the most wonderful specimen of humandom.Anyway it was Tuulikki's birthday and I decided to make her an eggless, vegan chocolate cake.
Except I wanted people to have no idea that it was a vegan, egg-less or dairy-less cake. I wanted it to be moist, gooey and rich with an "eat me" texture to it - not like some vegan cakes that I had eaten which would err towards hard and dry. I baked the cake and decided the best way to keep it moist would either be to poke holes in it while it was still warm and pour a rich chocolate syrup on top or spread the syrup once cooled as a thick icing. Either way I think after much experimentation, wefinally had a vegan chocolate cake that could pass as a regular chocolate cake. It was rich and it had a moist, tender crumb - everything you could want in a cake yet this one had no eggs or dairy in it.
So it came to serving the cake. I asked Tuulikki if there were forks for people to eat the cake. Her brow wrinkled and she put a finger to her chin thoughtfully. "I haven't been able to find my forks...." she mused before pausing for a second and then her hands sprung up into the air. "Eureka!" her expression said.
"Oh yes, the forks must be in the bedroom!!!" she said before scurrying off to look for them.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you have a good repertoire of vegetarian, vegan or allergy friendly recipes? And are there certain topics that you just can't discuss with some people like politics, relligion or food?
75g/2.5oz dark chocolate (dairy free) finely chopped
Chocolate syrup or icing
1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs water
1/2 cup/75g/2.7ozs icing or confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon cocoa
100g/3.5ozs dark chocolate, roughly chopped
Step 1 - Line a 20cm round baking tin with parchment and preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix together. In a jug mix the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla and then add to dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate and and then pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Step 2 - While it is baking, prepare the syrup. Heat the water, icing or confectioners sugar and cocoa until boiling and syrup - this may take a few minutes but you do want this syrupy. When thick add the chocolate and then whisk to remove any lumps and melt the chocolate.
Step 3 - When the cake is ready, take out of the oven and leaving it in the tin, poke tiny holes with a skewer. While it is still warm, gently pour the syrup over the cake and allow to cool completely before taking it out of the tin. Alternatively, if you allow this to cool and partially set, it takes on the consistency of icing and you can spread it out over the top which is what I did (who knew that inattentiveness would pay off? ;) ).
This can be caused by a few things already mentioned such as using the wrong egg replacer or over mixing. I always recommend using fresh raising agents. Generally, baking soda and baking powder only stay active for 3 months after opening.
Vegan cake is cake made without eggs, dairy butter or dairy milk. Each of these standard ingredients is easily replaced by plant-based substitutes, such as banana or flaxseed for eggs, non-trans fat margarine or oils for butters and plant milks for milk.
Leavening Agents: Eggs play a crucial role in leavening non-vegan cakes, but in vegan baking, bakers must find suitable alternatives to provide the necessary rise and lightness. Baking powder, baking soda, and vinegar combinations are commonly used to replace the leavening properties of eggs.
There's a big chance your butter and sugar will over-cream, meaning the butter will trap more air than it should. As the batter bakes, that extra air will deflate and leave you with an overly dense cake. It's all science! For best results, cream butter and sugar together for about 1-2 minutes.
Vegan baking, on the other hand, omits all animal products. While baking without eggs and butter can seem daunting, it's not impossible. All it takes is getting familiar with the right substitutions, and you'll be whipping up cakes, cookies, cupcakes, and more in no time.
Gluten-Free bakers have different flour types to experiment with, and vegan bakers now have new alternatives to dairy products. In addition, vegan and gluten-free cakes contain way more fruits than regular cakes; this gives them a unique flavor.
What are good vegan butter substitutes? In baking, you can use vegan butter, applesauce, dairy-free yogurt, coconut oil, coconut butter, olive oil, nut butter, mashed banana and mashed avocado. In cooking, you can use olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable stock, or avocado oil to replace butter.
Both cake mixes are vegan, though they required some easy plant-based subs for fresh ingredients. In the coconut cake, for example, the milk can be swapped for coconut milk, the butter for vegan butter or coconut oil, and eggs for any egg replacement.
A Short List of Vegan Cake Mix Options. Since most boxed cakes require that you add eggs, milk and butter after, most major brands such as Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker are already vegan!
For example, the coconut cake mix recipe called for 1 cup of milk. This can easily be swapped for full-fat coconut milk, which means more coconut flavor and a richer, more tender crumb.
Dummy wedding cakes, also known as faux or display cakes, are meticulously crafted, non-edible cake designs that resemble traditional wedding cakes. They are typically made of foam, Styrofoam, or other food-safe materials that simulate the appearance, texture, and decoration of real cakes.
A dummy or fake wedding cake is a cake that's made from faux layers. They can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some dummy wedding cakes are made up of entirely faux layers, with multiple tiers stacked together. Other cakes may include a mixture of both real cake layers and faux cake layers.
What Is It? A dummy cake is a fake cake. It looks like a real cake, but it's actually just decorated polystyrene blocks. They are used as display cakes for wedding shows and photoshoots.
Vegan cakes can sometimes be denser than their non-vegan counterparts due to the absence of certain ingredients that contribute to the structure and texture of traditional cakes. Eggs, in particular, provide leavening, moisture, and binding properties in conventional cakes.
Instead of buying an entire box of cake flour, simply incorporate two tablespoons of cornstarch into 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. This blocks the formation of gluten in the flour, which produces a lighter, fluffier cake. I definitely noticed a huge difference by doing this — this cake wasn't dense in the slightest.
There are several reasons why your eggless chocolate cake might not have risen as expected. Let's delve into some potential culprits: Leavening: Insufficient leavening agents: Did you use the correct amount of baking soda, baking powder, or other leavening agents?
Introduction: My name is Allyn Kozey, I am a outstanding, colorful, adventurous, encouraging, zealous, tender, helpful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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