Camp Coffee Cake

First I must apologize for not getting a good photo of this cake, it was just so good it went too fast!! That photo is the last slice from the cake and a couple days old! I've always loved coffee cake, and I mean that in coffee tasting cake not a 'coffee cake' if you know what I mean. I have made a couple vegan ones on this blog but neither were quite right. I didn't realize that the perfect recipe was under my nose all along - the 'Camp Coffee Cake' recipe from my old vegetarian blog, all I had to do was veganize it which was simple - replaced the 4 eggs with my current egg replacer of choice for 2 and all the butter with Vitalite. The flavour was perfect in this as was the texture of the cake - really impressed with this one, nice and moist but no gumminess at all!! A lovely finely crumbed cake....and the frosting is sublime....uber-sweet, but sublime ;-)

'Camp' is a thick coffee flavoured syrup also made with chicory, nasty as a drink but I do find it imparts a great coffee flavour in baking. In Ireland it's called Irel, hope it's still available there as I'll be making this cake a lot!!

Cake:

225g vegan margarine, I used Vitalite

225g golden caster sugar

225g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp Camp Syrup

---2 eggs----

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp potato starch

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp vegetable oil

100ml water

Frosting:

225g vegan margarine (Vitalite imparts a lovely buttery taste here)

450g icing sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp Camp syrup

soy cream

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line the bottom of two 8 or 9 inch cake tins with greaseproof paper and grease the sides with marg and dust with flour.

In mixer with paddle attachment, or by hand with a whisk, cream the marg until soft, add the caster sugar and beat until pale and light in texture. In a separate bowl make the 'eggs' by mixing the dry ingredients then adding the water and oil slowly whisking all the time until well mixed, thick and slightly frothy. It's ok if there are tiny lumps. Add to the marg/sugar mixture bit by bit, beating well after each addition. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and fold in until well mixed. Finally stir in the Camp syrup until well mixed.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tins and bake for 25 min. approximately. When cooked the centre of the cakes will be firm and springy and the edges will have shrunk a bit from the edges. Rest in the tins a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack, remove the paper and leave to let fully cool.

When cold sandwich and frost the cake with the frosting. To make simply cream everything but the soy cream together, then if needed add some soy cream to get the right consistency. You may not need any depending on the moisture level of the marg you use.

♥