M is a very special little boy in my life. He's my nephew and for the last couple of years its been my pleasure to come up with a birthday cake for his birthdays. So far he's had a train and last year he requested a dinosaur cake. Yikes, right? But I was very lucky to find this Dino baking tin from Amazon.co.uk. And I have to say I was very proud of this cake. It took me 3 hours of icing the critter. I couldn't feel my hands for a couple of hours after the individual little star tips that cover the cake. But he's worth it. And thankfully he loved it too. When his Dad tried to cut the cake he stopped him and said "No Daddy...do not cut his head...thats mine!" lol.
A few years ago I found a very good vegan vanilla cake recipe which I use as my base for such cakes. And for the Dino I added vegan chocolate chips. The icing is just vegan butter icing that we coloured ourselves. Everyone who tried it enjoyed it (except for the one person who refuses to eat vegan cake!!...who actually loved my cakes until he found out they were vegan *shaking head* Some people..) So below is the recipe that I use for all vanilla sponge cakes.
E-Man's Vanilla Cake
(found on Vegweb.com years ago)
1 cup plain white flour, sifted
1/2 cup plain whole wheat flour, sifted
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp egg replacer
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup canola oil (I use safflower or sunflower)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cold soya milk
Pre heat the oven to 350'C/180'F/Gas Mark 4
Grease and line an 8 inch round cake pan and set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the egg replacer, soya milk, oil, lemon juice and vanilla until completely combined. In a separate bowl, mix the white flour with the wholemeal flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Dig a well into the centre of your dry ingredients and pour the in the wet. Gently stir the two together until it looks combined and until all lumps are gone. But be sure not to over mix. Let the batter stand for 5 minutes.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for approx 45 minutes. Cake will be done when a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Then remove from the pan and leave to cool before decorating. If making a sandwich cake, slice the top off of one of the cakes. Make that your bottom layer and the cake will sit evenly.
NB: I make a double batch for sandwich cakes. And to make a good size 9" cake I make a double then also. Enjoy! Thanks again to E-man for this recipe.
