No Egg Cakes

Twice in the last week I have observed Facebook statuses which tell of baking crises during which baking is forestalled by a lack of eggs. No eggs, no problem, I say. On one occasion I recommended a tablespoon of vinegar for each missing egg (reacts with the bicarb in self raising flour to produce bubbles and hence a rise – you may need to add extra bicarb if using plain flour) and on another I promised to pass on recipes. So since the weather outside is stormy, I’ve decided to bake a cake with N and this is a perfect excuse to blog two of my favourite cake recipes for my eggless friend.

Both these recipes use citrus instead of vinegar, which gives a nice flavour, but I promise you, if you use vinegar instead (as many vegan chocolate cakes call for) you won’t taste it in the finished product.

Mum’s Lemon Cake

This is my mum’s invention and doesn’t call for any weird ingredients like soya flour (soya milk is readily available, but you could substitute for normal milk if you’re not concerned about being dairy free).

8 oz of SR flour

2 tsp of baking powder

3 oz of cornflour

Pinch of salt

4 fl oz of oil (I use sunflower)

2 fl oz of soya milk

Rind and juice of 2 medium lemons*

9 fl oz of water (including the juice of the above)*

6 oz of caster sugar*

*I couldn’t get unwaxed lemons so I used all lemon juice instead and in my efforts to reduce my sugar intake I cut the sugar down to 4 oz (futile really as I’m going to smear the cake with butter cream).

This is the easiest method ever!

1.                   Grease and line the cake tins.

2.                   Preheat the oven to c. 180 degrees or gas mark 5.

3.                   Weigh out the dry ingredients and mix.

4.                   Measure out the wet ingredients and pour into the dry ingredients.

5.                   Mix and pour into the cake tins.

6.                   Bake for c. 30 minutes.

7.                   Cool and sandwich with lemon buttercream (I use vegan marg) or lemon curd.

On reflection having made this cake, the cornflour makes the cake slightly chewy. Next time, as I have it in the cupboard, I'll use soya flour instead.

N did the piping on this. Not bad for a 3 year old.

Coffee Cake

This is one of my best cakes. Every time I make I get lots of requests for the recipe and I have been told by more than one person that it’s the best coffee cake they’ve ever tasted!

10 oz of SR flour

2 oz of soya flour (many big supermarkets sell this, or you can get it cheaply from your local health food shop – I’ve known people to just substitute flour or cornflour, I haven’t tried this myself)

1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda

8 oz of sugar

8 fl oz of oil

5 fl oz of orange juice

5 fl oz of boiling water mixed with a heaped teaspoon of instant coffee, then cooled.

1.5 tsp of vanilla essence.

1.                   Grease and line the cake tins.

2.                   Preheat the oven to c. 160 degrees or gas mark 4.

3.                   Sift the dry ingredients together.

4.                   Measure out the liquids and whisk.

5.                   Mix wet and dry ingredients together.

6.                   Bake for 30 minutes.

7.                   Cool and sandwich together with coffee butter cream and decorate with walnuts.

The consistency of the batters for these cakes will probably be looser then you are used to. Don’t worry, it’s completely normal and will bake fine.

Give them a try and let me know what you think.