Larder Challenge Number Two: Cake Fest

Usually, at this time of year, I’m up to my elbows in flour and mincemeat making cakes for the Twilight Christmas Fayre. Sadly, this year due to Mike’s ill health the fayre was cancelled, or at least postponed until Spring. I’m not sitting idle though. Linda and I are busy running a virtual Twilight Christmas Shop on Facebook, with a raffle, quirky fundraising events and sales of donated hand-made goodies, the famous Twilight calendar, book and tea towels. My role? Chief postie. This year I’m up to my elbows in jiffy bags, stamps and lists.

I hadn’t started to stock up on baking ingredients, but I did still have some flour, sugar and other bits and pieces that needed to be used up before the end of the year. So, taking inspiration from the larder challenge of a few weeks ago, this week I decided to see how many cakes I could make to use up the remaining stock. It’s a win-win for Mr VV, as we don’t normally have cake on a daily basis.

First up, I turned up a bag of dried fruit, containing about half a cup of raisins and sultanas. Not enough for a full-blown fruit cake but just right to add to a scone mix. Back in February I perfected a vegan scone recipe that is still top of my list of quick and easy bakes. You can knock up them in around half an hour, and I’ve never had a mix fail to rise into light, fluffy scones that are just perfect with a smidgeon of vegan butter or cream and strawberry jam. They don’t last long in the VV household, though they are great frozen and then quickly reheated in the microwave for thirty seconds to get that just-out-of-the-oven taste.

My next bake was a luscious coffee and walnut cake. I’d previously bought some ‘coffee sticks’ – instant coffee in individual sachets – specifically for flavouring coffee cakes and buttercream topping. I wasn’t very happy about this, as there is far too much packaging involved something I’m really trying to cut down on this year. And, contrary to Mr VV’s motto that ‘life is too short to drink bad coffee’, I had been using them for a mid-morning elevenses, rather than using ‘proper’ coffee. I pinched a few walnuts out of the breakfast mixed-nuts selection and made lashings of coffee-flavoured buttercream for the top and middle. It didn’t last long enough to photograph!

The next question was what to do with some candied ginger. This was easily solved with a Triple Ginger Cake that handily also used up the remains of a tin of black treacle, some fresh ginger lurking in the back of the fridge and a handful of pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Now that summer has gone we’re having more root vegetable casseroles than salads (seasonal eating!) so it’s good to use up the seeds before they lose quality. This sticky ginger cake was one of the first cake’s I made in my veganisation experiment earlier this year and is still a firm favourite.

By now the basics, flour, sugar and oil, were starting to run out, but there was still time for one more cake. Something new this time. A traditional New Year cake that you see all over France is the Galette des Rois or Kings’ Cake. It takes its name from the biblical story of Epiphany, celebrated on 6 January when the three kings were said to have visited the infant Jesus. From Christmas onwards you see these round cakes for sale in supermarkets and boulangeries all over France, some packaging even including a gold cardboard crown. There’s a tradition in France that the cake contains a tiny ‘féve’ (bean) and whoever gets the féve in their slice is king for the day, and gets to wear the crown. These days the féve is likely to be a plastic or porcelain figurine, often a cartoon character. I suppose it is bit like the traditional sixpence in the Christmas Pudding. I’ve always been wary about someone breaking their teeth or worse, choking, so féves  won’t feature in my vegan Galette de Rois recipe.

The basis of the traditional Galette de Rois recipe is a puff pastry tart filled with a frangipane stuffing. There are many regional variations, but I decided to follow something similar to the version in the west of France, based on a sweet crust pastry tortue with a puff pastry top. This was a good way to use up the last of some ground almonds, and although I didn’t have enough flour to make both base and lid, using shop-bought puff pastry is always easier than making your own. (I still have memories of the three-hour recipe to make ‘proper’ puff pastry for my Vegetarian Cookery School diploma.) The almond frangipane is based on my Bakewell Tart recipe. To get that authentic golden glaze, just mix two tablespoons of non-dairy , milk (I used oat) with one teaspoon of agave syrup and brush lightly over the top. Although we didn’t wait until Epiphany to taste the vegan Galette de Rois, it was certainly a success and no teeth were broken in the process!

Galette de Rois

For top: one pack of vegan puff pastry Pâte feuillette

For base:

210g T55 flour

100g vegan spread

15g sucre glace

2 tbsp chilled water

Frangipane:

150g vegetable oil (grams - weigh in bowl)

150g white sugar

150g ground almonds

100g T55 flour

1 sachet levure chimique

100ml soy milk

1 tsp cider vinegar

First, make the pastry base by rubbing in the vegan spread to the flour. You can also do this in a food processor. When the rubbed-in mix resembles breadcrumb texture add the sugar and mix well. Then add enough ice cold water to achieve a dough. The quantity will depend on the amount of water in the brand of vegan spread you use. Then, chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. After this, remove from fridge and roll out into a circle. Use the pastry to line a shallow round greased pie dish and blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Next, make the frangipane. Add the cider vinegar to the soy milk and set aside to curdle. Weigh the oil into large bowl. This may seem a little odd, but it works. Then add the sugar, ground almonds, flour and levure chimique, mixing well each time. Add the milk, which should have curdled and become lumpy. Mix well to a thick batter.

Remove the shop-bought puff pastry from the fridge, unwrap and unroll. Spread the frangipane over the base making sure all covered. At this stage you can add your féve, if using one, or a dried bean! Then roll over the puff pastry lid, seal the edges and crimp into a nice fluted edge and pattern the top if you wish.

Bake at about 190c for about 30–35 minutes, cover top with foil if the puff pastry starts to burn, but you want a nice golden brown. Check the frangipane filling is cooked through with a metal skewer. Cool in the tin.