A new recipe.

Exhausted! Finally sitting down... pfff. A busy day, finishing more orders this morning, then sourcing some nice paper in town, and back to prepare stuff for the country market tomorrow.

I also experienced a new recipe today. Last week, at the reception I worked for, a lady asked me if I could bake for her and her family a Chocolate Yule Log... but a Vegan version... wow, I want to try that, so here we go! I baked my first vegan cake and I am quite impressed with what we can do without milk, eggs and butter. I was a bit worried to do the sponge biscuit without eggs, but the combination of soda bicarbonate and vinegar worked perfectly! amazing! you just have to be quick and run to put everything in the oven :) I am quite pleased nobody sees me when I am cooking and running at the same time...

Source

For the Sponge:

• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tsp almond extract
• 2 tbsp vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Sift the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.
3. Mix together the wet ingredients, except the vinegar and mix into the dry.
4. Stir in the vinegar, pour into the tray and put into the oven as quickly as possible.
5. Bake for 25 minutes.
6. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, use the parchment paper to roll the sponge up. Set it to one side until it has cooled down completely. Don't stress over any cracks.

For the Frosting:

• 1/4 cup shortening (known as cookeen or trex in the UK)
• 1/4 cup soy butter
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
• 2 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp soy milk.

1. Mix it all together until you have a thick and creamy frosting. Set aside until the cake is ready.

For the chocolate topping:

• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 8 ounces dark chocolate
• 4 tbsp maple syrup

1. Heat the soy milk in a pan until its nearly boiling.
2. Take off the heat, add the chocolate and maple syrup and stir until dissolved.
3. Set aside until cool and really thick.

To assemble the rest of the cake:

• When cool, unroll the cake carefully and evenly slap the icing all over it.
• Roll the cake off the parchment and onto a plate before covering with the chocolate topping. If there's any cracks you can just fill them all with icing.
• Cover with decorations if you're feeling fancy and serve!