This cake was inspired by Micah!

I suddenly got a craving for cherry cupcakes after that! After looking around for a vegan non-chocolate cherry cupcake recipe that didn't have obscure ingredients, and not finding any to my satisfaction, I decided to improvise my own. I used Tesco's vegan Victoria sponge recipe as a base, and got tinkering!

Listen, I've never claimed to be the best at decorating

This cake is dairy-free, egg-free, vegan-friendly, soya-free. Leave out the almonds to make it nut-free. Use your usual substitutes to make it gluten-free.
Skip to the recipe

Notes for the uninitiated

• Grind up some porridge oats finely in a coffee grinder to make the oat flour. I haven't actually tried the almond meal, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.
• Don't be scared of the vinegar. You won't taste it in the final product.
• Remember that using electric whisks on vegan cakes will overwork the gluten. Use a wooden spoon to combine the wet with the dry, and stop mixing as soon as it's combined. It's important to work quickly with vegan cakes, so as soon as you've combined the wet and dry ingredients, try to get your cakes in the oven as soon as you can.
• It's worth investing in silicone cake cases. So much cake gets stuck to paper ones, it's so wasteful. With silicone, the cakes come out clean, with no waste, and the cases can be reused over and over.
• Vegan cakes taste better if left in an airtight container for a few hours before icing. This allows the moisture to disperse more evenly and improve the texture.

Recipe (makes 12)

Small bowl

• 180g plain white flour
• 20g oat flour/almond meal
• 2 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 75g caster sugar
• 75ml (5 tbsp) stevia sweetener (or another 50g sugar)

Large bowl

• 175ml water
• 1 tbsp finely ground flaxseed (golden will be less visible than brown, if that matters to you)
• 45ml (3 tbsp) rapeseed or sunflower oil
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
• ½ tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tsp or more almond essence
• few drops vanilla essence

Separately

• Glacé cherries, chopped into small pieces (optional)
• 1 or 2 tbsp cherry conserve/jam

Glacé icing

• 4 tbsp icing sugar (approx. I never measure icing sugar!)
• a few drops almond essence
• water
• 6 glacé cherries, chopped in half

Method

1. Preheat the oven to gas 4 (180°C). Line a tray with 12 muffin/cupcake cases.
2. Blend the flax with the water in the large bowl. Let it sit for a few minutes so the flax can absorb the water.
3. Blend the small bowl ingredients together thoroughly. Set aside.
4. Then blend in the rest of the larger bowl ingredients together using a stick blender, if you can. The syrup may clump, a stick blender will make sure it's all mixed.
5. Mash up the cherry conserve/jam. Keep it in a separate bowl.
6. Add the small bowl ingredients to the large bowl. Add the chopped glacé cherries if using. Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Don't overmix or you'll overwork the gluten. It will be lumpy, this is fine.
7. Take out 2 tablespoons of the cake mixture and mix it in with the cherry conserve.
8. Quickly divide most of the main cake mixture between 12 muffin cases.
9. Quickly add a bit of the cherry jam mixture on to the top of each cake, swirling it in a bit. (You can also marble it directly into the main bowl of cake mixture before dividing, but I seemed to get better results when spooning it on separately.) Then top each cake with the remaining cake mixture.
10. Tap the tray on a counter a couple of times to dissipate any large bubbles.
11. Bake at gas 4 (180°C) for 18-20 mins or until done. A wooden skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean, with a few crumbs clinging to it, and the cakes should spring back when pressed.
12. Allow the cakes to cool completely. I mean completely.
13. Once cooled, add the almond essence to the icing sugar. Then add a few drops of water and stir. Then add more water, one drop at a time, mixing thoroughly after each drop, until you get a thick icing. If it gets too runny, it will turn into a glaze and drip down the cake.
14. Ice the cakes, and place half a glacé cherry on each one. Give them a few minutes to set. Done! They have a shelf life of about 4 days or so, if kept in a cool room.

Other Stuff

While vegan chocolate cakes taste just as good, if not better, than their non-vegan counterparts, vanilla cakes always seem to come out less fluffy for me. They taste all right, though. This is probably the best non-chocolate vegan cake I've managed to make. The texture was fluffier than my previous vanilla cake attempts, and it tastes great.

I used morello cherry conserve from Lidl for this. I also picked up their black cherry one, so I'll try using that next time. It's less than half the price of the ones in Tesco.

I stupidly didn't think of swirling the cherry jam mixture into the mixture while it was still in the bowl. Instead, I filled the cases with the plain mixture, then spooned the jam mixture onto the top of each cake, then tried to swirl it. Doh! That's why some of the cakes have such weird shapes. Definitely do the swirling in the bowl first! No, don't. It came out worse! However, this could have been my broken oven, so feel free to experiment.

You could alternatively make some almond flavoured buttercream, and then swirl in some mashed cherry conserve before piping/spreading on the cakes. Or coat the top in cherry jam, then pipe on the buttercream (that was my original plan, but I got lazy).

Okay, bye!