Recipe: Vegan Orange Cake

"This moist, delicious orange cake has a lovely depth of flavour," writes Mercy Fenton, in her weekly column. "It is well worth making for a coffee morning or for an evening meal - serve with some fresh fruit or fruit compote."

Vegan Orange Cake

Ingredients

200gr cream flour

50gr ground almonds

200gr soft light brown sugar

1 tsp. bread soda

½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. ginger

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. finely chopped orange zest

240 ml oat milk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

120ml sunflower oil

1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Oil the sides and base of a 2 lb loaf tin and line the bottoms with a strip of parchment paper.
• Sift the cream flour, cinnamon, ginger, bread soda and salt into your mixing bowl and add the sugars and instant coffee powder. Mix together.
• In a jug, put oat milk, vanilla extract, oil grated orange zest and vinegar and whisk together.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk quickly until there are no lumps.
• Fill the batter into the prepared tin and spread evenly.
• Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
• Run a flat knife or pallet knife along the sides of the tin to free the cake while its still warm.
• Let the cake cool for 15 to 20 minutes before removing them from the cake pan and placing onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
• When the cake has cooled completely, frost them and then place the frosted cake into the fridge for an hour for the frosting to set.

Orange Vegan icing

Ingredients

60 oat milk

7gr corn flour

5gr maple flavour syrup

Grated zest of ½ orange

100gr dairy-free butter

40gr icing sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

Method:

• Whisk together the oat milk, orange zest and corn flour.
• Put in a saucepan and simmer gently until it is thick.
• Take off the heat and stir in the golden syrup.
• Scrape into a clean bowl and chill thoroughly.
• Once thoroughly chilled, place this base in a mixing bowl with a spade attachment and beat on high speed whilst adding diced cold vegan butter.
• Spread this on top of cake, spread evenly.
• Decorate with whole toasted almonds.
• It will keep well for 2 to 3 days in an airtight container.